Telling the Friends

I knew what I had to do. They were the friends that I'd seen dote on Dag. But it took all my courage to get in the car and drive over there.

2:00 p.m.

On Thanksgiving, Dag took me to the Swedish American Club for the most spectacular day I'd ever had. I saw him talk to people that he'd known all his life, even though he didn't speak English. They had known his parents and some had known Dag since he was a little boy. I also knew that every Saturday afternoon he went to the club to play cards and to eat dinner with those who gathered. It was the only family I knew that he had, and as far as I knew no one there knew that he had passed away.

On the way, I stopped at an international deli and picked up knäckebröd, a kind of Swedish cracker. From what I gathered, that was what Dag contributed to the weekly dinners. When I passed the club looking for a parking space, I could see people inside playing games and sitting watching TV. I parked, but I couldn't get out of the car. I was terrified of going into the club by myself. These people had all been so warm and welcoming to me last week, but I was with Dag. I wasn't one of them. I knew that and even though Mrs. Seafeld arranged to put the almond in my dish of risgrynsgrot it was to please Dag.

When I finally managed to pry myself out of the car (it was getting cold!) I didn't walk toward the club. I walked around the neighborhood just looking at the little houses on the hills of Ballard. The streets were hardly wide enough to drive down, but cars were parked on both sides. At every intersection there was an island in the middle that you had to drive around. Even in the cold air, children were outside playing, sometimes in steep yards and sometimes right out in the middle of the street. I walked for about thirty minutes before I realized I wasn't anywhere near where I thought I was. I retraced my steps, seeing everything again as if for the first time.

A ball bounced out of a yard in front of me and I instinctively bent to scoop it up and toss it back into the yard to the waiting toe-headed little kid who was laughing and running toward me. He screeched in laughter as the ball got to him, scooped it up and threw it to an equally blonde friend up the slope.

But something had caught my eye in the sidewalk. I knelt back down for a closer look. My heart caught in my throat when I saw scratched in the cement "Dag '03". No, it wasn't my Dag. But some little boy had scratched his name into wet cement three years ago. I could easily imagine Dag having done the same kind of thing when he was a child. These streets were his home. He probably grew up near this very place. Oh, don't get me wrong. I wasn't making a saint out of him and revering the neighborhood he grew up in. But it really got to me that this was his neighborhood, and his neighbors would want to know about him.

I quickened my steps back to the Swedish Center, took my knäckebröd firmly in hand and walked in.

It took a few minutes before anyone actually realized I was there. There was activity everyplace. Guys were playing cards in one corner. Women were playing board games with children in another corner. It was getting dark out and inside it was like watching a huge family gathered together on a winter's evening. I could see a few older people, men and women, in the kitchen preparing who-knew-what delicacy for the table tonight. After spending a few minutes invisibly standing near the door, I decided to start with the men at the card table.

"Excuse me," I said as I approached.

"Shhh, shhh," one said without looking at me. He raised a finger to me while another led a card, each played their last cards and they were scooped off the table by the winner. It could have been pinochle or whist from what I could tell watching one trick. The man who had hushed me now looked up at me and said, "Yah sure, what'll you have?"

"I was wondering if you are the gentlemen who usually play with Dag Håmar on Saturday afternoon," I said.

"Well, when he shows up now he plays here. Now look here," he said to his companions and then called across the room, "Lena! It's the young woman Dag brought to Thanksgiving." People suddenly stopped what they were doing and turned toward me. A few, including Mrs. Seafeld, whom I recognized from the Dinner, actually came over to where we were standing. "Where's Dag, Miss?" he continued to me.

I really thought I was going to get through this without crying, but my damn leaky eyes took it on themselves to nearly drown my words when I spoke.

"I'm sorry to have to bring you this news," I said. "Dag passed away Thursday morning. I thought you should all know." I was dripping tears out of my eyes and my nose was starting to run. I thought they were all going to just stay silent when Mrs. Seafeld wrapped her arms around me and said something to me in Swedish. I nodded my head and said, "Thank you," and everybody in the room started laughing and crying all at the same time. I reached out and handed Mrs. Seafeld the knäckebröd. "I hope I got the right thing. I didn't want you to be without since you didn't know about Dag," I said.

People were milling about as the word was passed back to the kitchen to those who hadn't heard and the TV was turned off. I was led to a chair and made to sit down while everyone gathered around and asked questions about what had happened. Someone pressed a cup of black coffee into my hands and I sipped greedily at it feeling the warmth and stimulation sink into my nervous system. I answered the questions the best that I could. I told them that Dag had rescued me on Sunday morning and had fought to stay alive for three days to get a new heart, but that it proved too long a wait.

What a contrast! My friends got me senselessly drunk on red wine when they came to comfort me. Inside of half an hour I was so wired on black Swedish coffee that I couldn't stop talking. I told them everything that had happened since I met Dag six months ago, and in turn they passed around stories of his childhood, military service, business, and card playing. It seems that they all remembered a time when he'd hit a baseball into the stands at a Little League game and hit the loathed math teacher in the head, when he'd had a double run in spades with a thousand aces and had taken every trick, when he moved away from Ballard and moved to Seattle (as if it had been another state), and who he dated in High School.

"That would be me," a woman said nearby raising her hand. "I'm Rhonda Somvar," she introduced herself to me. "Dag and I dated in high school."

"You..." I said and hesitated. "You painted the picture."

"What picture is that, dear?" she asked.

"A seascape at sunset with a man on the beach."

"You've seen that?" she laughed. "A childish effort I'm afraid."

"Dag loved that painting," I said. "He... He died looking at it."

"Oh my," she said. "I knew it was bad, but I didn't think it would kill anyone!" Everyone laughed, including Rhonda, but I could see there was moisture in her eyes, too."

11:00 p.m.

I think that I've been to a wake. Someplace along the line we ate dinner, including knäckebröd I brought, spread thick with slices of cheese. The dinner was different than Thanksgiving. For one thing, there was a turkey. They said that no one had thought of it on Thanksgiving, but that they were determined to have one sometime. Still, it had an abundance of butter, gravy, and potatoes, and many little casseroles that I couldn't identify. We told stories, even while I was helping wash dishes.

I can't imagine there being another memorial service for him that could be more fitting, though Reverend Olson offered to speak to the funeral home about the arrangements. I frankly didn't know who was in charge of arrangements, but I told him that Lars Andersen was the executor of the estate and that John Allen was his attorney. He said that he would take care of everything from there.

I did the right thing. I went to his family and told them. His family just happenes to be a club of people who share a neighborhood and heritage that I scarcely knew existed before I met Dag. I was invited to return each week (even though Mrs. Seafeld took me aside and showed me an entire kitchen cabinet full of unopened knäckebröd packages and we had a wonderful laugh about Dag bringing another one every week), but I know it won't be the same to go back again. I love them, but they were Dag's family. I can't hang onto that for the rest of my own life.

That reminds me. I've been hanging onto this letter for a whole day now. I'm afraid of what I'll read in it. I'm afraid that no matter what it says, I won't be able to take it. Well... I was afraid of the Swedish American Club, too. I guess there's nothing to do but face it.

Soon.