Free Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name by Vendela Vida

judge her. Well , I don’t like Kirsi , I wanted to say.
    “Kirsi’s husband, Johan, he passes away suddenly—he has
    a heart attack. After they are married. I perform the funeral service,” he said. “ Perform is the right word?”
    I nodded, and then second-guessed myself. “That or pre-
    sided over .”
    “I presided the funeral service?”
    “ Performed is fine,” I said, changing my mind.
    “Kirsi needs much support after Johan’s death, and she comes here every afternoon for coffee. I was typically not here—we have to be at the church. But it is your mother’s duty to be here.”
    “Duty?”
    “A priest’s wife is to have coffee and keep food for people who visit. She has to be at the house between eight in the morning until four in the evening every day. She is here in case someone visit and need to talk. A widow. Or someone who lose a child. Anyone. She offers them food and warmth and care. She prays for them. It is her duty.”

    I stared at him.
    “I know you being American think it’s sexism and unfemi-nism, but that’s her job.” He sighed deeply.
    “I have a long talk with her before we marry—in the church here in Inari. I tell her the expectations. And she is accepting of it. She says she is willing.”
    It was strange if not impossible to picture my mother marrying in a church in Finland. She and Dad were married in a friend’s living room in Rhinebeck. I had seen a picture—my mother in a light blue dress and Dad in a suit, with a salmon-colored tie and tight shoes. He mentioned the discomfort of the shoes when he was looking at the photo, as if they were responsible for what happened to their marriage.
    “She knows the life that is going to be hers,” Eero continued. “And she cannot do this. She wants to travel. She wants her life to be bigger.” He gestured broadly, as if conjuring great clouds. “This is why she goes to the protest in Masi.”
    I tried to think of what she was missing in her life in Rhinebeck. What had driven her away the second time?
    “Are you married?” Eero asked.
    “Engaged,” I said, and suddenly felt sick over my behav-ior in Helsinki. I was still engaged, and while Pankaj had kept what he knew about my life a secret, he had not done what I had done.
    “So I’m sure that you and your soon husband—what is his name?”
    “Pankaj.”

    “You have many discussions about the future.”
    “Of course,” I said, and then wondered if this were true. “So like you and . . .”
    “Pankaj,” I repeated.
    “Pankaj. Like you, we talk over everything. I tell her I have my calling when I am twenty-three and she knows how much I work since then. I go to divinity school in Helsinki and then come back up here to be with my people.”
    “You mean your town, or the Sami?”
    “The Sami. And my town. Almost everyone in this town is Sami.”
    Someone passed in front of the house, and the dogs barked like seals.
    “When are you marrying?” he asked. “We haven’t set a date yet,” I said.
    Eero nodded, and I was sure that he knew.

6.
    I excused myself to go to the bathroom. The room had a violet color scheme—violet towels, violet shower curtain, green-and- violet floor mat.
    Inside the medicine cabinet were five frosted glass shelves, three of which were filled with remedies for back pain. Some had English translations on the back of the bottle; others had drawings of a spine on fire.

    I opened the drawers beneath the sink, searching. I doubted I would discover anything—it had been so long ago—but I wanted to find something my mother had left behind. Something I would recognize. Toothpaste. At home, she had tubes of Colgate, Aim, Tom’s of Maine. It bored her to go to sleep with the same taste in her mouth every night.
    But here, there was nothing.
    I was furious at Kirsi’s ex-husband for dying. Kirsi wasn’t my stepmother, nor had she robbed my mother of a husband, but she had made my mother’s presence here invisible. Richard had done the