Page 79 of Ship Wrecked

“I’ll be damned. You really can track the cheeks.” Peter sounded tickled by that. “By the end, his face is like a little moon.”

It really was. “When he shot up during puberty and lost those cheeks, my mother was devastated.”

“I’ll bet.” He turned to the next page and took a moment to study the photo of a sleeping infant with a surprisingly thick head of brown hair, clad in green footed pajamas. “This is Astrid, right? Why is she next? You’re older than her.”

“She was adopted as a newborn. I wasn’t. So she became part of the family before me.”

Something she’d tried her hardest not to envy growing up, more or less successfully. And the last traces of longing and resentment had disappeared altogether when Astrid got older, and Maria finally understood: There were many ways to feel like an outsider, and not all of them involved family.

Most early photos of Astrid showed her playing in the sunshine, because from what their parents said, she’d always hated being cooped up indoors. It hadn’t surprised any of them when she became a hiking guide after a couple of unhappy years as a hairstylist.

“Astrid was an outdoor cat from the very start,” Stina would say when they were growing up, then proceed to ruffle Astrid’s hair until her teenage daughter squawked in outrage and ran off, generally to her tree house.

Several pages later, Peter paused. “Hold on. Why did your sister get fewer photos than your brothers?”

“A lot of the pictures taken before she transitioned make her uncomfortable.” Even though Swedes generally weren’t as attached to sex-specific clothing as Americans, some of her sister’s earlier outfits and hairstyles had virtually screamed her assumed gender identity. “Pappa only put in photos she approved.”

“Gotcha.” Peter nodded, entirely unfazed, as she’d both hoped and expected he would be. “That makes sense.”

Maria tried not to tense up in anticipation of what he’d see next. What she’d have to explain to him, and what it would reveal about her.

It wasn’t that she felt shame about it anymore, or blamed something intrinsically wrong with herself. Really, there was no one to blame. Over time, she’d come to sincerely believe that.

But pain didn’t require a guilty party, and Maria didn’t often display her vulnerabilities for the scrutiny of others. Outside her family and a couple of her closest girlhood friends, only her ex Hugo knew the full story of how she’d become an Ivarsson.

Not that knowing it had stopped him from causing her yet more pain.

After the next flip of the page, Peter went quiet for a moment. “And here you are.”

There she was. Wearing jeans and a tee. Already tall for her age, solidly built, with her blond hair in neat braids by her ears. Expressionless, her stare bold and cold.

“Sweetheart.” Through the plastic covering the photograph, Peter’s forefinger smoothed over her girlish cheek, again and again. “I didn’t realize how old you were when your parents adopted you.”

“Eight.” No need to belabor any of this. Just the bare facts would do. “My biological parents died in a terrible fire at a Stockholm club when I was four. It was their anniversary, and I was with a babysitter.”

His finger stilled. “Maria.”

No, she wasn’t stopping yet. Especially not for that too-gentle murmur.

“There was no will specifying where I should go, and they were both the only children of only children, so there weren’t alot of options.” Her memories of those months in limbo remained tucked so deep in her mind, even she couldn’t access them. She could only assume she’d been terrified. Heartbroken. Utterly bewildered by what had happened to her family and her secure existence. “Eventually, a distant relative of my biological mother took me in for two years.”

After a few months, she’d settled in. Stopped having nightmares every night. Adored their little apartment overlooking a tree-studded courtyard. Grown to love Inga, who wore her thick hair in a graying bun.

That she remembered, although not as well as what happened next.

“Her adult daughter became very ill. Cancer. My guardian”—not mother, although she’d called Ingamammathat last year together—“was the sole caretaker, and she couldn’t meet her daughter’s needs and raise a young child at the same time. Not with her own health issues.”

Inga had been in her early sixties and a lifelong smoker, and her cough often kept Maria awake until late in the night. Years later, when Maria had looked her up online, she’d found both women’s obituaries. The mother had outlived her daughter by only three months.

Peter’s arms had tensed around her, but his voice remained as soft as the chaise’s velvet upholstery. “She relinquished you?”

“Yes.” If she sounded a bit brusque, so be it. He’d have to forgive her. “I went back in the system and got sent to another home a few months later. A couple in their late thirties. I was with them for over a year. She cleaned offices, and he did maintenance for some local apartment complexes. He got laid off, and she found out she was pregnant. They’d assumed they couldn’t have children, so they were shocked.”

And delighted, despite their financial woes. Effervescent with joy to have a child of their own blood, although they’d liked Maria fine.

But not enough to keep her.

Maria explained it to Peter the same way she’d explained it to herself so many nights in bed, a forsaken child desolate and trying to cry quietly enough that no one else would hear. “They couldn’t afford two children. Even before he lost his job, they could barely pay their rent each month. So without his income and with a baby on the way, they didn’t really have a choice.”

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