“And the father?” Elsa persists.
“He disappeared. Disappeared for years. We thought he’d never give up trying to find us, but he was gone for so long that we hoped—” says Lennart, interrupting himself as if the words are too heavy for his tongue.
“But now he’s found us,” Maud fills in.
“How?” asks Elsa.
Lennart’s eyes creep along the tabletop.
“Alf thinks he found your grandmother’s death notice, you see. And using that he found the undertaker’s. And there he found—” he starts to say, then looks as if he’s reminding himself of something once again.
“Me?” Elsa gulps.
Lennart nods and Maud lets go of his hand and runs around the table and embraces Elsa.
“Dear, dear Elsa! You have to understand, he hasn’t seen the boy in many years. And you’re about the same size and you have the same hair. He thinks you’re our grandchild.”
Elsa closes her eyes. Her temples are burning, and for the first time in her life she uses pure and furious willpower to go to the Land-of-Almost-Awake without even being close to sleeping. With all the most powerful force of imagination she can muster she calls up the cloud animals and flies to Miaudacas. Gathers up all the courage she can carry. Then she pries her eyes open and looks at Lennart and Maud and says:
“So you’re his mother’s parents?”
Lennart’s tears fall onto the tablecloth like rain against a windowsill.
“No. We’re his father’s parents.”
Elsa squints.
“You’re the father’s parents?”
Maud’s chest rises and sinks and she pats the wurse on the head and goes to fetch a chocolate cake. Samantha looks cautiously at the wurse. Lennart goes to get more coffee. His cup trembles so much that it spills onto the countertop.
“I know it sounds terrible, Elsa, taking a child from his father. To do that to your own son. But when you become grandparents, then you are grandparents first and foremost. . . .” he whispers sadly.
“You’re a grandmother and grandfather above all things! Always! Always!” Maud adds with unshakable defiance, and her eyes burn in a way that Elsa wouldn’t have believed was possible in Maud.
Then she gives Elsa the envelope she got from the bedroom.
It has Granny’s handwriting on it. Elsa doesn’t recognize the name, but she understands it’s for the boy’s mother.
“She changed her name when we moved here,” Maud explains and, in the softest voice possible, adds: “Your grandmother left this letter with us months ago. She said you had to come for it. She knew you’d come.”
Lennart inhales unhappily. His and Maud’s eyes meet again, then he explains:
“But I’m afraid that first of all we have to tell you about our son, Elsa. We have to tell you about Sam. And that’s one of the things your grandmother apologizes for in her letter. She writes that she’s sorry she saved Sam’s life. . . .”
Maud’s voice cracks until her words are like little whistles:
“And then she wrote that she was sorry for writing to say she was sorry about it, sorry for regretting that she had saved our son’s life. Sorry because she no longer knew if he deserved to live. Even though she was a doctor . . .”