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Taylor exited the Lexus and walked toward them. He was dressed sharp, wearing a fitted wool coat, but for the soccer shoes poking out from the hem of his dress pants.

Ulla’s first instinct was anger.

Then Penelope broke free. She ran to him. He stretched his arms wide, but his grin was wider, and his limbs collapsed tight around his daughter.

“What are you doing here?” Penelope questioned him when he let go, and her eyes bounced in fascination between her parents.

Taylor began to explain, “Trying to find Ulla . . . ” But when he raised his eyes from Penelope, and they fell onto Analise, any remaining words appeared to fail him.

Penelope frowned. “Ulla?”

“Me?” said Ulla.

Taylor didn’t answer. He took Penelope’s hand and approached Analise.

Analise clutched the neck of her capelet and met them halfway, her gaze drawing up and down Taylor and their daughter. Their grasped hands. Ulla remembered Penelope’s fingers as a baby, imagined how they would have clamped around Taylor’s, and he would’ve smiled just as he was now. She wondered if Analise saw this, too.

Yes. Of course she did.

Taylor seemed to regain composure. “We went to the church first, thinking the wedding was over, but they said it was canceled?”

Analise gently brushed the snowflakes from his shoulders, down his coat lapels. She breathed, “Yes.”

With his free hand, the other still holding Penelope’s, he laced his fingers through Analise’s.

Ulla broke their enchantment. “You were looking for me?”

The passenger door of the Lexus opened, and Taylor’s gaze leaped from Ulla to Penelope. “Help me with your grandma?” They hastened to the car with him, Analise and Penelope’s skirts rustling across the snow-dusted lawn.

Ulla stopped short when she saw the woman inside. Not a day had gone by that there wasn’t some whisper of Linnea Larsson that pierced Ulla. Of all the images, Ulla had never pictured this one. A frail woman with a scarf concealing her shaved head. Hairless, penciled brows, and sunken cheeks. But still, those elvish, fairy eyes. Taylor reached for Linnea and gently helped her into his arms.

“Hello, Ulla,” Linnea said. “I’m sorry for the intrusion—truly I am, but he couldn’t wait one more second to meet you.”

“Linney.” Saying her name released a weight she’d thought certain was too heavy to lift. She searched for the hatred in her heart . . . but somehow found none. “What are you doing here? Who wants to meet me?”

Linnea stared at her as if expecting Ulla to answer. As she’d done for so many years. Give me the words, Ulla, she seemed to be saying with a sad smile. “Your pappa.” She turned and waved to the Lincoln.

A man stepped out of the driver’s side, appearing to be a chauffeur, or a bodyguard. He opened the back passenger door.

Another man emerged. Much older. His brown loafers were genuine, polished leather, and his tailored, navy suit was in crisp pleats. The rest of his lanky frame appeared. His skin sagged in wrinkles but tightened at the corners of his mouth and spritely blue eyes. He crossed over the grass to Ulla as if he’d done so countless times.

Or perhaps because he’d been waiting to do so nearly his entire life.

Ulla looked down at her greased coveralls and swiped a stray hair from her forehead, self-conscious in the atmosphere of this man’s obvious wealth and power. His eyes took in the sight of Analise and Penelope, but it was clear he was taken with Ulla. In flawless Swedish, he said, “You look as how I always imagined. Right down to the coveralls.” He jammed a hand to his mouth, swallowed, and slowly composed himself. He opened the flap of his suit coat.

From the inner pocket, he removed a small wooden horse.

The man took Ulla’s hand and placed Beskyddaren in her palm. “I’ve been looking for you and your mother in every face for nearly half a century.”

Ulla wiped her tear-stained mouth. “She’s gone.”

“Never,” he said, and curled his hand around Ulla’s, gripping Beskyddaren. He repeated the words her mother had spoken to her from forty years ago: “He did his job well, did he not?”

Part IX

There shall that strife in me disappear:

to be wise and not satisfied,