Read Online High Tide by Inga Abele - Free Book Online Page A

a cigarette and listen to the snoring of the other workers. The heavy night pressed the smoke down and constricted his chest. But maybe it had been from the excitement that he now had a daughter.
    The taxi driver woke him when they were already back at the house:
    â€œWake up, Dad! You should’ve carried your newborn in yourself!”
    The yard was empty. Ieva had already run inside with the baby to hide her tears.
    He’d slept through it.
    Ieva, of course, was silent for the next few days. His daughter obviously meant nothing to him if he could just fall asleep like that. Did he do it on purpose? Wasn’t he happy? He was happy; he just couldn’t show it on the outside like everyone else.
    In his opinion, Ieva’s sadness was a huge cover for how spoiled she was. Both of her parents had worked and her mother had migraines, so they couldn’t keep both Ieva and her little brother. They had sent Ieva off to the countryside to live with her grandmother, but that’s where all hell had broken loose. She hadn’t had real life conditions there, the way he saw it. It was like living in a conservatory. Books. Laziness. The sea. Her Gran did everything for her. And the little princess just lay on the couch, reading—and from the age of four!
    Andrejs hated know-it-alls. Smart people. Writers. Who needs them? Fine, everyone can come up with one great thought in their lifetime, a single, strong thought that’s their own. You can’t run on empty, so to speak. Something goes on up there, all the time.
    Alright—two great thoughts in a lifetime, like Andrejs had.
    Yes, he can count two great thoughts of his. The first is the one he’d love to remind Ieva of, in case she’d forgotten. That, despite everything that’s happened, plus prison, he never turned into some pig.
    They say your own people will get it. He won’t explain anything more to anyone else. Those who don’t get it can just drop it. Who needs explanations. He won’t say anything more. It’s such a massive thought and so completely applies to him that chills run through his body when he repeats it to himself and fully realizes it.
    The second thought is about life. He’ll tell Ieva about it someday. And she and all her smart people will pale at the idea. Because they’re all liars. Shelves stuffed full with books. Fakes! Because a person can come up with one, two great thoughts in his lifetime, but then there are people who knock out a book a year. It’s obvious to Andrejs that they just make money in the name of boredom. That’s how that world works—the less sense you have, the more others will take advantage of you.
    Three thoughts, what lies. Three is impossible.
    He’s told Ieva that. She drove him nuts with her talking, pissed him off. He had felt so unprotected, so forced into solitude and darkness, that he had screamed it right into her face—I hate know-it-alls!
    She’d screamed back—but I crave knowledge!
    A yeller. She’d been consistently raised like that, to be proper and positive. Undisciplined and lazy.
    Oh, Ieva. His Ieva. What’s wrong with him!
    Â 
    At times he’s actually pretty scared. Things will just fall into place and this wave builds up inside him. Then he becomes afraid of himself. Something hidden deep within him shifts; something he’s never known and will never know about. At moments like that, both life and death seem trivial, and an intense pain rips through his heart. No, not pure pain, but some kind of twisting, a rope of aching, longing, rage, hope, and dread; it runs so deep that it constricts his entire chest.
    He can’t breathe and he’s afraid of himself. At moments like that he’s happy his heart has destined him for loneliness. God forbid someone else has to have this wave crash over them as well. Only Andrejs can bear that weight. He holds this wave like Atlas holds the world on his