Ulrich
Written for readers who have finished Book 1.
Ulrich was Sabine's husband for twenty-six years and is Lena's father: a decent, sensible, secular man who makes his coffee too strong and has never been one for saying warm things. When Sabine was forty-nine he sat her down at their own kitchen table with two cups of that coffee and told her, gently and with real regret, that they had become companions. They divided the furniture and the friends without a raised voice, going room by room with a list on a Sunday, and he carried the heavy boxes down himself. Everyone said how well they handled it. What Sabine remembers is a kindness with nothing behind it any more.