“He died last spring,” Jonas whispered. “He always talked about a woman in Vilnius. A summer. A promise he broke because his parents forced him to flee to the West. He said he never stopped looking for her.”
“Sorry. The door was open.”
Jonas’s face went pale. “I know that lake. It’s the one they flooded in ’86 to build the dam. The whole village is under water now.”
Saulė gasped.
Saulė hated attics. They smelled of mothballs and the suffocating past. But her grandmother’s will was clear: clear out the entire house in Žvėrynas by Sunday, or the state takes it.
“Jonas,” he said, extending a hand. “I live two doors down. Your grandmother used to let me store my kayak in her shed.”