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Linnea was naked and shrugging on the Viking’s sweatshirt. But Ulla saw it. Marks on Linnea’s back. A greenish-yellow blotch, a fresher blue one, and raised dots. Linnea turned. Ulla lowered her head and stared at a chip on the lamp. “I-it’s really cold if I keep my underwear on.”

She tossed Ulla a pair of white underwear with blue trim.

When dressed, with their damp clothes in a heap, Linnea went to her dresser and slid a drawer out completely. It was filled with a few t-shirts, creased into squares. She teetered with it, the pile of shirts sliding to one end, and then used her bony knee to foist it securely into her arms.

Confused, Ulla watched Linnea lower and scrape it across the carpet against the bedroom door. “I don’t have a lock.”

Still confused, Ulla nodded. “Oh.”

“The ones I hate the most take the longest to leave. Sometimes they spend the night.” Linnea talked as if chewing on spoiled food.

Ulla’s eyes went to the drawer blocking the bedroom. “Ohhh.” She hugged the sweatshirt around her chapped skin. “Is that why you were outside?”

Linnea hauled her Strawberry Shortcake spread off the bed and gave it to Ulla. “What were you doing out there?”

Ulla wrapped it around herself. “I heard you singing.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Ulla walked closer to Linnea. With the shock of falling through the ice wearing off, the shock of Linnea talking only grew. “How come you don’t talk in school?”

Linnea only teethed her thumb and straightened a pile of neon plastic bracelets on her nightstand. She swiped her bangs aside and Ulla stared at the long eyelashes, fearful she’d somehow switched Linnea’s mute button back on. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, sitting warily on the bed, as if asking permission.

Linnea glanced at her. “How many languages do you speak?”

“Just Swedish and English.”

“It’s pretty.”

You’re pretty, Ulla wanted to say. “Thanks.”

“Is that where you’re from?”

“No, my mother is.”

“Your dad, too?”

Ulla thought of Peter. She thought of her mother’s hateful words: “I don’t want you to ever speak his name again, Ulla. Ever!”

“I heard he died,” Linnea whispered.

Ulla hesitated, pulling the blanket up to her nose, smelling a mix of laundry detergent and smoke, and asked, “Can you keep a secret?”

Linnea’s smile was deep, and a dimple appeared. “I’m good at keeping secrets.”

Ulla said, “It’s not true. My dad—he’s alive. I’ve never met him.” She frowned, recalling her mother’s flimsy words that Ulla had initially accepted, but over time grew more suspicious of. “My mother says she was pregnant with me when she came to America. But she has no memory of who my father was.”

“Really?”

Ulla shrugged. “She said she got into an accident, and it erased some of the past from her brain.”

“Wow,” Linnea said, “that—that is . . . I’m sorry.”

Hearing and seeing Linnea’s kind, but uncertain, response only made it worse. Of course it was a stupid story, invented by her mother. Peter had been her pappa, and so it was okay that she didn’t know her father. But now Peter was gone, too.

From outside the window, loose laughter sounded along with a car door opening. Linnea zoomed to the curtain and peeked out. “They’re leaving.”

“Who?” Ulla asked.