Chapter 5: Telling the friends

I KNEW WHAT I HAD TO DO. They were the friends I’d seen dote on Dag as if he were some kind of Ballard hero. But it took all my courage to get in the car and drive over there.

Knäckebröd and risgrynsgröt

On Thanksgiving, Dag took me to the Swedish American Center for the most spectacular day I’d ever had. I saw him talk to people he’d known all his life, even though he didn’t speak Swedish. They knew 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 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, it was what Dag contributed to the weekly dinners. When I passed the center, looking for a parking space, I could see people inside playing games and sitting in front of a TV. I was sure the Seahawks were playing. Or maybe they were out of season and it was someone else. I should pay more attention.

I parked but couldn’t get out of the car. I was terrified of going into the center by myself. These people had all been so warm and welcoming to me at Thanksgiving, 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 risgrynsgröt, it was all 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 about thirty minutes before I realized I wasn’t anywhere near where I thought I was. I retraced my steps, seeing everything again 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 towhead 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 blond friend up the slope.

But something caught my eye in the shoveled 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. 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 American Center, took my knäckebröd firmly in hand, and walked in.

Black coffee

It took a few minutes before anyone realized I was there. There was activity everywhere. Guys were playing cards in one corner. Women were playing board games with children in another corner. The TV was blaring. 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.

“Shh, shh,” 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 or spades from what I could tell. 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 Hamar on Saturday afternoon,” I said.

“Well, when he shows up now, he plays here. Now look here,” he said to his companions and 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, who I recognized from the dinner, actually came over to where we were standing. “Where’s Dag, Miss?” he continued to me.