The Last Boat Home by Dea Brovig

when milk spilled over the rim of her bucket.
    She set the pail on the floor of the farmhouse’s hallway. ‘Mamma?’ she called. ‘Ole and Tom Ivar are back.’
    ‘What is it now?’ her mother said.
    Else hurried after her into the yard, her galoshes sliding in the soil to the pier, where Ole was putting in the trawler.
    ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘And how is Johann?’
    ‘Much better,’ said her mother. ‘Isn’t Tom Ivar with you?’
    ‘It’s only me today,’ Ole said. ‘I thought Johann would want to see the wreckage, now that the weather has cleared.’
    ‘He isn’t home,’ Dagny said.
    ‘That’s a pity. Well. Perhaps you’d like to come instead? It isn’t far. It needn’t take too long.’
    Dagny shook her head, but bit her lip before replying. She glanced over her shoulder at the farmhouse, whose black windows gave nothing away.
    ‘Now that I’m here,’ Ole said. ‘So that the trip isn’t wasted.’
    ‘Else,’ said her mother, ‘go and get my coat.’
    Else raced to the farmhouse to fetch their winter coats and hats and to exchange her galoshes for a pair of boat-worthy shoes. As she buttoned her clothes, she listened for clues that her father was moving in her parents’ bedroom. She expected him to appear on the stairhead at any moment and to demand to be told what was going on. The house was silent when she slipped outside and returned to the pier, where Ole was helping her mother onto the trawler.
    Else did not wait for an invitation before clambering on deck. She joined them in the cramped quarters of a wheelhouse that smelled of banana and pipe tobacco and bided her time until her mother ordered her ashore. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother’s brow furrow. Her jaw was stern with worry and it occurred to Else that perhaps she wanted her there. Still she hugged the extra layers that she had carried to her chest and kept quiet so as not to disturb her mother’s thoughts. The motor thudded as Ole swung the trawler’s wheel. He prodded the throttle and navigated the boat into the fjord.
    The Iselin ’s hull sliced through the water, transporting them past the shipyard and along the ferry’s route until she broke towards the sea. Seagulls trailed after them in a dirty cloudthat matched the tones of the recovering sky. They screeched their hunger at the empty net coiled at the trawler’s stern, continuing their pursuit when she passed into the Skagerrak. Ole steered them north and, as they followed the coastline, Else looked from the dials of his instruments to the rifle that hung over the wheelhouse door. She realised she had been a child when she had last boarded the Frøya. Now, she never would again. She brushed her mother’s arm.
    ‘Wouldn’t you like your coat?’ she asked.
    Her mother blinked. She sank her hands into the sleeves.
    ‘We haven’t much further to go,’ Ole said.
    When the Iselin dipped behind a knot of islands, he eased back the throttle and pointed. ‘There she is,’ he said.
    Else moved to the counter by the portside window. She trawled the water with her eyes but did not see what she knew must be there: no floating timber, no glint of steel. Then she noticed a shadow darkening the waves like a sea creature. She focused on its shape, on its beginning and end, while the counter trembled with the engine, shooting a shudder through her stomach and thighs.
    She glimpsed a wooden flank. The metal base of a mast. The awkward angle of a trawl door.
    ‘The engine room must have flooded,’ Ole said. ‘That may be why she capsized. The keel will be badly damaged, too. She’s for scrap, I’m afraid.’
    Else stared at what was visible of the Frøya ’s remains and felt her insides silting up. She imagined her smashed parts – broken glass, kinks of metal – scattered over the seabed or rolling with the tide towards Denmark. The boiling vat and sorting tank would have taken root in sediment to collect sea cucumbers in their basins and wait