Everything was falling apart and she couldn’t separate herself from it. Everything was her fault, she thought as she walked back to the kitchen. Her dad spent all that money for her to make cider, which she hadn’t been able to sell. She had been so busy and selfish making cider that he had to hire help for the orchard, which resulted in Bass breaking the window. And then again, she was too busy with cider making to help him fix the window, which caused him to fall. Now, while he was trying to heal, she couldn’t even keep the orchard running smoothly without being mean to a child. She was a failure.
On the counter before her was an enormous loaf of bread, left earlier in the day by Mrs. Dibble. If she weren’t so angry and heartbroken, she’d tease her dad about how he was being courted with food. She unwrapped the six-pound beast and set it on the cutting board, where it spilled over the edges while littering the counter around it with errant sesame seeds.
She wrapped her hand around the bread knife, her knuckles turning white as she squeezed the worn wood handle. She wasn’t ready to give up on this place. Staying here was the one balm to the deep, lingering hurt she’d nursed since college.
? ? ? ? ?
It was her freshman year at UW–Green Bay, her first time away from home. She settled into her dorm, which she shared with a girl who was rarely there. That suited Sanna just fine. Thad would often visit on the weekends, and they’d watch reruns on her little dorm TV or awkwardly make out. She’d made a few friends on her floor, and Anders wasn’t far away at another college, so they would meet occasionally for lunch at Kroll’s to feast on butter burgers and cheese curds. And then everything changed.
It was a Thursday. She’d finished her first biology exam and picked up her mail. She often had a card or package from her dad, but that day she found a pale blue envelope. It was addressed to her in a handwriting she didn’t recognize. She ripped it open and pulled out a cream card with pink embossed letters spelling out THINKING OF YOU. The thick paper didn’t waffle in the late fall breeze, it stood stiff as she opened it and read the words inside.
Dear Sanna,
I know you’re probably shocked to have this letter from me. Why wouldn’t you be? Now that you’re in college, I had hoped we could reconnect. I can never make up for the years you had without a mother, but I’d like to explain my side and get to know the amazing woman I’m sure you’ve become.
I can drive up from Milwaukee anytime you’d like to meet. My number is below.
All my love,
Mom
Sanna stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, her world tilting sideways. This was the woman who had left her father. This was the woman who broke Sanna’s childhood in half and taught her never to get too close. This was the woman who kissed her six-year-old daughter on the head, then sent her out to play in the snow without another word. In her fuzzy memories, her mom was petite, with light brown hair and thin lips in a downward crescent. She had big, watery brown eyes, but Sanna understood now they were tears. Her mom had stayed in the house or ran errands at the local shops, but never worked in the orchard. She never ate apples.
This little piece of stiff paper confused her. She wanted to tear it, burn it, flush the ashes into the toilet in her dorm room, then forget it ever existed. Just holding it felt like a betrayal to her father. But the six-year-old in her wondered what a hug from her mother might feel like, and she held the paper to her nose, hoping to smell a hint of her mom’s perfume, a hint at what her life was like. She was rewarded with a waft of spice.
There was no address on the envelope, but it was postmarked from Whitefish Bay, a suburb near Milwaukee. Was that where her mom lived now? What did she do? Were her eyes still watery?
Sanna didn’t call her but kept the card for weeks, taking it out, sniffing it, then hiding it again. She didn’t tell her brother during their lunches. She didn’t mention it to her father when she went home for her first Christmas break. She didn’t tell Thad, because why would she?
After Christmas, she returned to school and on her birthday received another card, this time a pale yellow envelope, postmarked again from Whitefish Bay. The front of the card said HAPPY BIRTHDAY in different-colored letters. Inside it read,
Dear Sanna,
I assume because you didn’t respond to my first note that you have no interest in reconnecting. I understand. But now that you’re no longer with your father, I couldn’t let your birthday pass again without sending this card. If you ever change your mind, I can be up there in a few hours. I promise.
Always in Love,
Mom
She had added her phone number again. Right at the bottom. All ten digits starting with a 414—the Milwaukee area code. It seemed foreign. She only ever called numbers in her own area code—920. She picked up her new cell phone, the one her dad had given her for emergencies. Without thinking it through, she called and held her breath as the phone rang.
“Hello.”
Sanna swallowed.
“Mom?”
There was a pause, and Sanna almost hung up.
“Sanna? Is that you?”
“I got the birthday card you sent. And the other one.”
“I’m so happy you called. Can I see you? Can we meet?”
Sanna stared at the posters on her walls, the ones she’d bought in the bookstore to make the room look less bare. Everything was new and didn’t have a history, so she had hung posters of Calvin and Hobbes and a map of the Shire—she liked hobbits. Her roommate’s side had one calendar—the kind that arrived free when you gave to a charity—stuck to the wall with a tack, still open to September’s panda.
“I have some tests to study for this week.”
“Oh, well, maybe another—”
“But this weekend is open.”
“Wonderful! Where should I pick you up?”
She gave her mom directions to her dorm and wrote down the time on Saturday. Should she tell her dad about it? Anders? But she knew she wouldn’t. It was her secret, and she wanted to know how everything would turn out before she explained it to anyone. For the rest of the week she had envisioned the meeting. Her mom would hug her and apologize and tell her exactly the right things to make her understand why she left. She would realize her mistakes and come home to Idun’s. She knew it was a childish fantasy that her parents would reunite, but she couldn’t help it. When it came to her mom, she still felt like a child.
She had wanted to wear a dress, but the below-zero temperature meant jeans and a sweater. She waited outside, peering inside every car and wondering if she’d recognize her. At last a cream-colored car with gold trim pulled up to the curb. Out stepped a tiny woman. She only came up to Sanna’s shoulder.
“I would have recognized you in a crowd—you’ve grown as tall as Einars.”
She hugged Sanna, but Sanna could barely feel her mother’s tiny arms through her puffy winter coat.
“Get in. It’s too cold to stand outside long.”
Sanna folded into the seat, her knees almost to her nose, and fumbled for the seat adjustment. At last she found a button on the side. The seat moved like magic, silent and smooth, until it had gone as far as it could. She still couldn’t stretch out her legs, but at least they weren’t in her face anymore. The bauble on her hat kept bumping the ceiling of the car so she took it off. Her mom looked over.
“I guess I should have brought my SUV. Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“I thought we could have lunch. I know a great Italian place.”