A Reason to Stay

The sunset at Jökulsárlón had reached the ice before it reached the water. Pale pink rested along the ridges of the floating bergs, while their submerged edges glowed a blue Helen had never seen outside a paint box. Beyond them, the glacier spread toward the mountains beneath a thinning veil of cloud. Cold air slipped between her scarf and collar. She pulled the scarf higher and watched a small, crooked iceberg turn almost imperceptibly, revealing a smooth face where there had been a broken one.

Beside her on the visitor path, a man wrote something in a pocket notebook, crossed it out, and tried again. Helen had noticed him earlier, sheltering a paper cup between his palms. He wore a mustard-colored hat that should have made him look foolish and somehow didn't. Now he shut the notebook with an expression of such frank dissatisfaction that she smiled before she could stop herself.

“The view is doing better than I am,” he said.

She told him it was an unfair competition. He laughed and moved a little to give her more room on the path, although there was already plenty. They stood looking out at the lagoon. The air carried a faint mineral chill, and small pieces of ice moved slowly through the dark spaces between the larger bergs. When Helen's eyes began to water, he offered a clean paper tissue from a packet so battered it seemed to have traveled farther than he had.

His name was Graham. He was forty-one and halfway through a holiday he'd given himself after finishing a part-time degree in astronomy. His work installing commercial kitchens had paid for it, one evening class at a time. Helen, who was forty and had spent the previous week helping her closest friend settle into an apartment in Reykjavík, felt a sudden respect for those tired evenings. She had continued along the south coast afterward because, having come this far, she wanted to see something she couldn't help assemble or carry upstairs.

Graham understood the distinction. He asked about the apartment, and she found herself describing a wardrobe stranded diagonally in a stairwell and an argument conducted entirely through its open back. The memory made her laugh harder than it deserved. He watched her with a pleasure that warmed her more effectively than the scarf. When he smiled, one corner of his mouth lifted first, as though he were deciding whether to share a private joke.

They walked a short way along the marked shore path, taking their time. Near the parking area, a sultry woman with sea-green eyes and a wine-red scarf was helping her companion fasten the hood of a coat. Helen passed close enough to catch the woman's amused expression, then turned back to Graham, who was trying to describe the peculiar shape of a distant iceberg without calling it a duck. He failed so thoroughly that she began seeing ducks everywhere.

The notebook reappeared when they stopped at another view. This time he left it open, and Helen caught three entries before looking away: Buy one apple. Miss a turning. Ask a question. Each had a small tick beside it. Beneath them was an unfinished line that read, Stay until.

She apologized for looking. Graham said that there were no secrets, then closed it so quickly that she wasn't sure he meant it. She wondered whether it was an assignment, a game, perhaps a list from someone waiting for him at home. His ring finger was bare, which proved nothing. She found that she wanted to know anyway, and that wanting made her uncharacteristically cautious.

The temperature was falling. Graham pointed toward a sheltered place beside the path, and they stood there with their shoulders almost touching. He asked what Helen did when she wasn't carrying furniture. She managed a veterinary practice, she told him, and was excellent at persuading an anxious owner that their cat would forgive them eventually. She was less accomplished at persuading herself that an ordinary conversation with an attractive stranger might simply be enjoyed.

She didn't say that last part, although something of it must have reached him. He turned slightly toward her, his attention steady, and told her he was glad she had smiled at his notebook. She could feel the warmth of his breath when he spoke. A fine strand of hair had escaped from under her hat; when it caught against her mouth, he made a small motion as if to brush it away, then waited. She tucked it behind her ear herself and stepped closer.

“What are you meant to stay until?” she asked.

He looked down at the notebook, then handed it to her. The cover was plain, the pages filled with dates and unremarkable little acts. Buy one apple had followed a paragraph about always shopping for a household of two even after his partner moved out. Miss a turning meant taking the next safe exit without treating the mistake as the ruin of an afternoon. He had begun the book months earlier, collecting proof that he could be a beginner at things and survive them.

The trip was a graduation present, as he'd said. It was also his first holiday alone. His friends had imagined bold achievements: a summit, a long hike, a spectacular encounter with nature. Graham had discovered that he wanted smaller things. Choosing his own lunch. Asking a stranger a question without apologizing for taking up space. Remaining somewhere beautiful after the point at which he would normally hurry on to avoid feeling alone.

Helen returned the notebook carefully. The entries had seemed like instructions from somebody else; they were records of choices he was making for himself. There was nothing grand about them, and that was what moved her. She admitted that she had invented errands at her friend's apartment to delay leaving. Being needed was familiar. Turning up somewhere with no practical purpose still made her feel a little exposed.

He took off one glove and held out his hand, palm upward. Helen removed hers and laid it in his. His fingers were cold at first. Then their hands warmed together inside the pocket of his coat, an arrangement so unexpectedly intimate that neither of them spoke for a while.

The pink began to fade from the upper edges of the ice. Across the lagoon, the glacier was losing its separate folds and creases to the dusk. Helen knew they would have to leave soon, return along the visitor path, find their cars. She also knew that if she waited for the perfect casual words she might say nothing at all.

She told him where she was staying and asked whether he would join her for supper at the guesthouse restaurant. He was booked a short drive farther along the road. They checked the route on his phone, made a sensible meeting time, and exchanged numbers. The practical details pleased her: this was becoming something they could actually do.

Before she could put her glove back on, Graham touched her knuckles to his lips. The small gesture made her breath catch. She caught the front of his coat gently and drew him toward her. He paused close enough for her to feel him waiting, and she answered by kissing him. His free hand came to her cheek. She had expected the kiss to be brief in the cold; instead, when they parted, he rested his forehead against hers and they both laughed softly.

On the way back, he stopped to finish the line in his notebook. Helen didn't look over his shoulder. At the cars he showed her what he'd written: Stay until you have a reason to leave, instead of a reason to run.

She liked the distinction, but liked his expression even more as he waited for her response. She kissed him once again, warm and certain now, and reminded him of the time they had agreed. Then she got into her car, with the lagoon darkening beyond the windshield and a table for two waiting farther along the road.