Excerpt from The End of the Ocean by Maja Lunde, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The woman smiled.

"She has brown hair that gets blonder in the summertime. Brown eyes," I said.

"And the child?"

"He's ... an ordinary baby. He has four teeth and still doesn't have much hair. Perhaps he has a few more teeth now, actually. He was cranky the last few days. I believe his gums were itchy."

What more should I say? That he had a tummy I liked to bury my face in? That he laughed loudly and shrilly? That he howled like a foghorn when he was hungry?

"When did you last see them?" the woman asked.

"When we left," I said. "The day we left Argelès, July fifteenth."

"The time of day?"

"Midday. Lunchtime."

Lou had stopped looking at me now. Instead she pulled her legs up beneath her, leaning her head toward her knees.

"What happened?" the woman asked.

"What happened?"

"Yes?"

Suddenly I didn't like her prying.

"What has happened to many people," I said. "We had to flee, we were some of the last people to leave the city. And we got separated."

"Was that it?"

"Yes."

"And you haven't heard from her since?"

"How could I? The network is down. Telephones don't work. But I've tried. Otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here now!"

I drew a breath. I had to calm down, couldn't start screaming. Be positive. Show that I'm a good guy. Besides, I liked the woman—in her fifties, a narrow face. She looked tired, working hard for others all day, that kind of tiredness.

"We agreed—" I said as clearly and calmly as I could. "We agreed to come here. That was our plan."

She looked at the computer again and typed something more.

"Unfortunately, I can't find them registered here," she said slowly. "They're not here. And neither have they been here."

I looked at Lou—had she heard anything? Maybe not. She was sitting with her forehead against her knees, making it impossible to see her face.

"Can you check one more time?" I asked.

"There's no need," she said flatly.

"Yes, there is."

"David, listen ..."

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Jeanette."

"Okay, Jeanette. Surely you have a family of your own. Imagine if we were talking about your people."

"My people?"

"Your family. Your loved ones."

"I have lost somebody too," she said.

She had lost somebody too.

Of course she had lost somebody as well. Somebody she searched for, somebody she would maybe never see again.

"I'm sorry," I said. "What I mean is that you are the one with access to the records." I pointed to the computers. "Isn't that what you do? Find people?"

Find people. It sounded childish. I was a child to her, for sure, a child with a child. I straightened up. Ruffled Lou's hair, tried to look paternal.

"We have to find Anna. She's her mother," I said, gesturing to Lou. "And her brother," I hastened to add. She mustn't think that I'd forgotten about August.

"I'm sorry, but you've been separated for twenty-four days," she said. "Anything could have happened."

"Twenty-four days isn't that long," I replied.

"Maybe they've ended up in another camp," she said. Now there was something comforting in her voice.

"Yes," I said quickly. "That must be what happened."

"I can put in a missing person notice," Jeanette said. She smiled again, really trying to be pleasant. And I responded just as pleasantly, thank you, that was kind of you. I wanted to show that I could do this too. I sat stiffly, holding my arms tightly against my body. I hid my elbows from her, hid the rings of sweat on my T-shirt. I looked at Lou again.

I still couldn't see her face. She was sitting just as stiffly as I was, with her face pressed against her knees. Afterward she had marks from her knees on her forehead where the fabric of her trousers had created a faint grid pattern on her smooth skin.

Excerpted from The End of the Ocean by Maja Lunde. Copyright © 2020 by Maja Lunde. Excerpted by permission of Harper Via. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.