Free The Lily Pond by Annika Thor Page B

shove over.”
    May’s mother asks whether Stephie will be staying for dinner, but Stephie has promised Elna she will let her know in advance if she won’t be home to eat.
    “Well, you’ll stay next time, then,” May’s mother concludes. “I want you to know you’ll always be welcome here.”

    May walks her to the tram stop. Walking down Kaptensgatan, Stephie notices a young man coming out of a tavern. He looks like … Oh, it really is Sven! He’s walking rapidlytoward the tram stop, about twenty yards ahead of her and May. What is he doing here?
    As they pass the tavern, Stephie peers in through the window. It’s an old-fashioned workingmen’s tavern, dimly lit, with scruffy brown furniture and beer glasses on the tables. A few of the tables are occupied by men, all sitting alone and dressed in worn-looking clothes. A young girl is wiping one of the messy tables with a dishcloth. She’s bent forward over the table, her hair falling in front of her face, but just as Stephie passes, she looks up to answer a question from one of the men.
    Stephie sees Sven at the stop from a distance. Before Stephie and May can get there, a tram pulls up. Sven gets into the front car.
    “Run. You can make it,” May says.
    Stephie picks up speed and manages to get through the back doors of the car just as they’re shutting. She pays the conductor for her ticket.
    At Valand, the stop closest to the Söderbergs’ apartment, she sees Sven get off. He turns onto the street that leads home. She continues to another stop and walks from there, not wanting Sven to know she saw him.
    Not until she has figured out what he was doing at a tavern in Mayhill.

second time Stephie goes home to the island for the weekend, the autumn storms have started. The evening before she leaves, the wind howls outside her window and the rain hammers against the glass. In the morning she can see that huge branches have blown off the trees in the park. The almost leafless treetops along the street are flapping, and the clouds are racing across the sky. The sidewalk is slippery with wet leaves.
    Stephie has a book to read, and as long as the boat is on the river, she sits in the passenger area, engrossed. That changes the instant the boat hits the open sea, and the waves bang wildly at the sides of the boat. Stephie drops her book. Nothing seems to be staying in place; everything is rocking and reeling. Suitcases and baskets slide along thefloor, from one side to the other, and back again. A baby begins to wail.
    The stagnant air is overpowering. The scents of coal smoke, damp woolen garments, and perspiration make Stephie nauseous.
    The little baby throws up in its mother’s lap. For Stephie that smell is the last straw. Dizzy and sick to her stomach, she rushes out on deck.
    Over a year ago, when Stephie first went to the island on the boat, she was seasick, even though the wind wasn’t blowing nearly as hard then as it is today. She’s never dared to tell anyone, but last summer when Uncle Evert wanted to take her along on a fishing expedition on the
Diana
, she said no.
    The boat trip out to the island takes only a couple of hours.
We’re almost there
, she tells herself, but soon she has to lean over the rail and vomit. When her stomach is empty, she leans her head back, letting the rain rinse the cold sweat from her brow.
    When the boat finally pulls up along the pier on the island, Stephie is exhausted and soaked through. Her knees feel like jelly and her head is spinning. She has to hold tight to the railing as she walks down the gangway.
    “Stephie?”
    It’s Uncle Evert’s voice. Looking around the pier and boathouses, Stephie doesn’t see him.
    “Stephie, over here!”
    His voice is coming from one of the little jetties. UncleEvert is standing by the dinghy. Weak-legged, she makes her way over to him.
    “I came by boat,” he says. “It’s such terrible weather for you and Märta to have to bike in.”
    Stephie’s forgotten the rain