On the fourth day Sonja got out of bed and started cleaning the cottage with such frenetic energy
that Ove kept out of her way, in the way that insightful folk avoid an oncoming tornado.
He meandered about the farm, looking for things to do. He rebuilt the woodshed, which had collapsed in one of the winter storms.
In the coming days he filled it with newly cut wood. Mowed the grass. Lopped overhanging branches from the surrounding forest.
Late on the evening of the sixth day they called from the grocery store.
Everyone called it an accident, of course. But no one who had met Ernest could believe that he had run out in front of a car by accident.
Sorrow does strange things to living creatures. Ove drove faster than he had ever driven on the roads that night.
Sonja held Ernest’s big head in her hands all the way.
He was still breathing when they made it to the vet, but his injuries were far too serious, the loss of blood too great.
After two hours crouching at his side in the operating room, Sonja kissed the cat’s wide brow and whispered, “Good-bye, darling Ernest.”
And then, as if the words were coming out of her mouth wrapped in whisks of cloud: “And good-bye to you, my darling father.”
And then the cat closed his eyes and died. When Sonja came out of the waiting room she rested her forehead heavily against Ove’s broad chest.
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