Memory of Love (9781101603024) by Linda Olsson

loneliness, my grief. The overwhelming sense of hopelessness. And my total acceptance. But my mother was outside, distant.
    Why had she suddenly decided to bring me into her life? I knew she was my mother of course. But the word mother had no meaning. I had no memory of missing her, longing for her. I had only seen her during brief visits at long intervals. She had never been a part of my life, nor had I been a part of hers. There was so little I knew. My grandfather rarely talked about my mother. When he did, it was just to give me little snippets of her present life, never anything about who she was. He would tell me she would be coming to visit the following week. That she had landed herself a new film role. That we should be proud of my beautiful mother. But it always felt so distant. As if she lived in another world that had no relevance to us or our lives in the village.
    Instinctively I knew that it had been important to her, though. Claiming me and taking me with her to Stockholm seemed to be essential for her. And the look she gave Grandfather across the table as she took my hand was one of triumph. Much, much later, when I revisited my grandfather’s village on one of the islands in the Åland archipelago, I stumbled across information that gave me some clues to Mother’s need to prove herself as a mother. My mother. But by then it had no relevance. Or perhaps it did, in a way. Perhaps it was given to me to help me to find a place for my mother in my life’s story.
    Back then, as a miserable seasick six-year-old, I resigned myself to my new life, and I closed the door to what had been my life until then. I saw my grandfather only twice after that, and somehow his world had already slipped out of my grasp by then. Also, by then it was taking all my effort just to survive in my new environment. In my mother’s world. I simply could not allow myself to hold on to the memories.
    I wondered how this big step felt for Ika. I wanted him to understand that the door to
his
other world would remain open. That he was free to live in both worlds, on his own terms.
    Besides, I had to accept that this was a temporary arrangement. I had no guarantee that I would be allowed to keep him with me. One day at a time, I thought. One day at a time.
    The music stopped and I stood and cleared the table. It was time for our first proper walk together.
    It was the day we started the project. The first day.
    â€˜I think you should make a big one. On the beach.’ Ika was standing on the deck with his eyes on the sea.
    â€˜What do you mean?’ I said.
    â€˜A big one like the ones you make inside.’
    â€˜An artwork?’
    He nodded, but didn’t turn.
    â€˜A really big one. So big you can only see it from above.’
    What did he mean?
    â€˜But if I make it that big I can’t see it while I am working on it,’ I said. ‘I won’t know what I’m doing. Even with the ones I make here it’s sometimes hard to see the whole thing and get the proportions right.’
    â€˜I can see it for you,’ he said.
    I wasn’t sure what he meant, and I wasn’t sure how to respond.
    â€˜Okay,’ I said after a moment’s silence. ‘I’ll try. If you help me.’
    He said nothing.
    â€˜We’ll need a lot of material,’ I said.
    â€˜Yes,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
    And that was how we started.
    I didn’t quite understand what we were setting out to do, but the idea seemed to grow on me. We began to collect material and intuitively we picked more substantial things. Rocks that were so heavy I could only carry one at a time. Large pieces of driftwood. Feathers that we tied together into long ribbons. We created several stashes along the beach for the heavy material while we kept searching for the right location.
    A couple of weeks later Ika asked me to follow him down to the beach. We walked further than we usually did, to a place where a