by Katy Paige
“I love her.”
Kristian looked flummoxed. Of all the things he had expected to hear, this must not have been one of them.
“You what?”
“I love her. I love your sister. I love Katrin.”
“You love her.” Kristian looked down, but Erik could hear the softening in Kristian’s tone and in his shoulders. He looked back up, eyes narrow. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because it’s true. Because you’re looking at me and you know it’s true.”
Kristian nodded slowly, searching Erik’s eyes.
“What’re you going to do about it?”
“I haven’t gotten that far yet.”
“Okay. But, if you’re lying…if you’re just using her, if you hurt her again, I’m coming for you.”
“You won’t be coming for me. I love her. I won’t hurt her again.”
Kristian grinned at Erik. “What’d she say when you told her?”
Erik shifted uncomfortably, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“Oh, Erik. You told me before you told her? Freshman mistake. Whew. You’re going to be in trouble. Oh, man, I sure wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”
“Then keep it to yourself, Kristian. I’ll tell when the time’s right. It’s still new. I don’t—I don’t want to rush her. Wreck things.”
“I guess I can keep a secret. For a little while.” Kristian’s smile faded as he regarded the younger man seriously. “Can I give you some advice, though?”
“Sure.”
“Speaking from experience, don’t wait too long. Don’t assume she knows.” Then he clapped Erik on the arm and walked away, back to the other men.
Erik mulled that over for a moment before realizing he never brought up the subject of Wade to Kristian, as he had intended. He wanted Kristian to be on his guard too. He’d make a point to speak to him later.
***
The ladies joined them on the porch soon after and it surprised Erik a little to see that Lisabet and Margaret wore traditional Swedish dress, including white caps, peasant blouses, long skirts, and aprons. Ingrid, Jenny, and Katrin were more toned down than the older generation, although all three girls wore some manner of traditional Swedish peasant blouse, and Erik recognized Jenny’s as one his mother used to wear, which made him happy and sad all at the same time.
“What do you think?” Katrin asked, turning her head from side to side so he could see the tiny flowers.
“Skön,” he answered, putting his arm around her possessively. Beautiful.
She smiled at him and reached up to kiss his cheek, but he moved his face at the last second, catching her lips with his for a quick kiss. It was only a peck, but as she drew back, her eyes widened, and she shook her head.
“My mother’s right there!” she whispered, dimples deep and merry.
He leaned down and put his lips as close as possible to her ear without actually kissing it, and whispered, “I haven’t seen Paradise yet.”
As he drew back, she swallowed and her face was serious, but her eyes betrayed her. You want me, too. “We can’t just leave.”
“Why not?”
“They’ll notice.”
“Notice what? Do you think they all thought we were playing checkers at your apartment last night?”
“You are very naughty.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet.”
Katrin bit her lip, staring at him.
“Show me. Show me Paradise,” he insisted, flicking his eyes to her breasts, which were full and lush in her peasant blouse, squeezed together by the tightly laced bodice. His tongue darted out to wet his lips before he looked back up at her gaze.
She rolled her eyes, but her breathing was heavy, and he felt her resistance slipping.
“It’ll have to be quick, Erik.”
“I’m multi-talented. I can do quick too,” he grinned.
She glanced around to be sure no one was watching, then took his hand, and led him to Paradise.
***
A huge circle of about fifty people had taken hands around a traditional Swedish maypole and were circling it jauntily as familiar Swedish folk songs played. Erik was distracted watching Katrin from the sidelines as she held hands with her mother and aunt. Moving left then right, she was sometimes surprised by the shift in directions which made her giggle, dimples creasing her cheeks.
She looked like she’d been a part of this tradition for her whole life, and out of nowhere, he had the premature hope that he’d be here to see her dance every year. He shook his head. She’s only been your girlfriend for a week, Erik. But, he couldn’t help the longing to have her settled permanently in his life, suddenly couldn’t stand the thought that he would ever miss a Midsommardagen with her at the Triple Peak. He knew for sure he’d never be able to celebrate again without thinking of her. Either Midsummer was ruined for life, or it must be celebrated together.
“Hey!” He was so distracted watching her, he didn’t notice Jenny sidle up next to him until she poked her bony elbow into his ribs. “Watching your girl?”
He glanced at his sister, who offered him a shot of Aquavit. He shook his head, gesturing to Kat before smiling at Jenny. “She doesn’t like it.”
Jenny raised her eyebrows then spilled it on the ground, rolling the little shot glass between her hands. “Always knew you’d eventually fall. Always knew it’d be hard and fast when you did.”
“Well, Miss-Know-It-All—”
“That’s Mrs.-Know-It-All to you.”
He smiled at her, glancing meaningfully at her belly. “Almost Mamma-Know-It-All.”
“Mamma,” she whispered. Jenny placed her hands on her tummy, rubbing it slightly. “I miss her so much lately. Sam’s mom is great, you know? She’s already planning to come and stay when the baby comes. But I miss mine.”
“Noen elskar meg en gang. Jeg er velsignet, Jenny-girl.” Someone loved me once. I am blessed. The same words their mother bade them remember as she lay dying.
“I know she loved me, Erik. I know. We were blessed.”
After a few moments of mutual silence, Erik turned to her. “Can I ask you something, Jen?”
“Anything.”
Erik looked over at their father, feeling his expression harden. “Didn’t it make you mad? At the end when she was calling for him? Why aren’t you still mad?”
She considered this, speaking in soft, measured tones. “I was very angry with her at the time. I never understood how she could ask that of him. But, when she died, I missed her so much, I let go of the anger. I guess if you’re married to someone that long, other people, even your kids, don’t have a right to judge the way you do things.”
“Jenny…wait. You were angry with her? What are you talking about?”
“You know…how she asked him not to come. After she really started going downhill that September. She asked him not to come in the room anymore. She didn’t want him to have memories of her in those final, awful days.”
Erik’s heart was beating faster and faster, and his breathing felt ragged. “What are you talking about?”
Jenny turned to her brother, brows furrowing at his tone. “You know this, don’t you? You must know this, Erik.” She paused, looking at his face, her brows creasing. “They said goodbye over two weeks before she died. She told him, ‘It’s going to get bad now, Carl…no matter what, no matter if I call out to you, don’t come. It won’t be me. It’ll be the sickness, the drugs calling. Not me. This is me now, telling you goodbye, telling you how much I loved our life, how much I loved you. I don’t want you to remember me weak and frail and dying. Don’t come, Carl. We say our goodbyes now when it’s still me.’ That’s what she said. That’s what she wanted.”
“She never said that. That’s a lie, Jen!”
“Erik! She did! Of course she did!” Jenny crossed her arms over her chest, looking around to see if they were attracting attention, and finished softly. “I was there when she said it.”
“Oh,
and I suppose she didn’t mind you seeing her like that?”
“We’re talking about Mamma here, Erik. She was old fashioned. I was her daughter. Womenfolk are supposed to see those sorts of things. Think about that line in Persuasion: ‘Nursing does not belong to a man; it is not his province.’ We talked about that line for half an hour that summer when we were reading all of her favorites. She was trying to tell us something. Having me there made sense to her. Having him there didn’t. She wouldn’t have had any peace in those final days if she knew he was watching her die.”
“No!”
“Yes, I promise you,” insisted Jenny. “I can’t believe you didn’t know this.”
“Just to be totally clear…you’re telling me that she told him not to come to her?”
“I’m saying that the sort of love and respect he had for her made it possible for him not to break his promise...as far as she knew.” She sniffled softly. “But he did break it, of course. Late at night, he would lift her up and scoot her over, and lie next to her for an hour, maybe more. I was in the cot in her room, pretending to sleep, so I knew. I’d hear him come in, but act like I was asleep. She never knew; she was so out of it by then. He’d wrap his arms around her and hold her wasted body for a while, then head to the park before dawn like he was never there. But I knew. I knew he’d been there.”
Erik’s eyes were burning with unshed tears. He’d been so wrong about his father. So terribly wrong. He thought of his father’s breath on his cheek at Big Sky Mountain whispering I believe in you. But Erik hadn’t believed in his father. He had believed the worst, and it made him want to fall at his father’s feet and beg for forgiveness for judging him so harshly.
“Wait, Jen. She wouldn’t let him be there, but she let me be there?”
“No, Erik. I did that.”
He turned to her, eyes wide. “What?”
“I couldn’t do everything alone, and I w-was closest to you. None of you were supposed to be there at the end. She said not to let you h-help, but I—”
Jenny’s voice broke and she hung her head. Erik put his arm around her shoulders. Sam looked over, but Erik caught his gaze, asking with his eyes for a few more minutes. He turned Jenny away from the dancing, and they walked a short distance to a bench on the main path.
“Tell me the rest, Jen.”
“She didn’t want Pappa there. She didn’t want you boys there. Only me at the end.” Jenny swallowed. She wouldn’t meet his eyes and her face was coloring. “But I couldn’t lift her…no, that’s a lie, she didn’t weigh anything. I could’ve cared for her on my own if I’d had to. The truth is this: I didn’t want to do it alone.”
Erik nodded beside her. “I see.”
Jenny touched his arm, and he turned to her, her eyes a mirror of his. “I thought you knew, Erik. She was so out of it by then, I thought you knew, and you helped me anyway. That’s why I never mentioned it. I thought it was hard enough for you to go against her wishes without me asking you about it.”
“We Lindstroms don’t exactly share our feelings, Jen.”
“That’s true.”
“She didn’t want me there, Jen?”
“Only because she loved you. She didn’t want the men in her life to see her fade away, out of it, dying. She wasn’t herself at the end. It was messy in every imaginable way. You know that.”
“Do you think she regretted it, Jen? Pushing him away when he—when he loved her so much? She called for him at the end. I heard her. She wanted him.”
“That was the sickness, Erik. She was out of her head on the painkillers they were giving her. She didn’t know what she was saying. Love is different for everyone. Best not to try to figure it out when it comes to someone else. Just believe in the people you love. Believe that they did their best.” She rested her head on Erik’s shoulder. “We don’t repeat our parents’ journeys. We have our own. We take what helps and use it. We take what hurts and try not to repeat it. We try to remember that we weren’t in their shoes. We try to remember that they were our parents—” Jenny rubbed her belly lovingly, looking down before meeting Erik’s eyes again with a small shrug. “—but they were just people too.”
“I thought…Jen, I thought—”
Jenny leaned her head up to look into her brother’s eyes. “Of course you did. You didn’t know, Erik. Now you do.”
“But, I’ve—”
“You’ve what? What have you done that’s so bad? You supported your sister through the darkest weeks of her life. You comforted your unconscious mother as she died. You never lashed out at your father, even though you must have been very angry. Why can’t you see what I see? I love Nils and Lars, but you’re the best of us, Erik. The strongest of us, the one who loves the deepest and the most, Minste.” She glanced at Katrin, who was laughing at something her mother whispered in her ear. “Katrin Svenson’s a lucky girl.”
Erik caught his sister’s eyes and smiled at her. She tilted her head to the side, the way all of the Lindstroms do, and smiled back at him.
Then she stood up, waving to an approaching Sam. Before she walked away, she turned to Erik, pecking him lightly on the cheek, telling him she loved him in their mother’s Norwegian. “Elsker deg, Minste.”
“Elsker deg også, lillesøster.” She squeezed his hand and then left him alone, joining her husband.
He remembered Katrin’s words when they were lying in her bed, after she woke up that Monday morning from the scarlet fever. Erik had shared his fears with her about his father. “I don’t think he still loved her at the end.” And Katrin had responded, “I’m sure he did.”
His girl had been right to trust in love, after all.
***
When he related this story to Katrin later that night, she listened quietly with her head on his chest, tracing gentle circles on his skin through the curly blond hairs, while he talked in the still darkness of her room. He stroked her hair from her temple to her neck, in long, distracted caresses. She occasionally nodded and once she wiped her eyes, but otherwise she just listened, and Erik felt a profound comfort in being able to turn to her, to talk to her, to tell her everything.
Finally he stopped speaking, and she propped her head on her hand to gaze at him. “That’s a lot for you to get your head around, Erik. But, it’s good, not bad.”
“I wish I’d known then. Or even right after she died.” He turned, propping his head on his hand too, so they were facing each other. “I was angry with my Pappa for such a long time, and he didn’t deserve it. I should have had more faith in him.”
Moonlight filtered into the room, making her face look ethereal, angelic.
“It doesn’t sound like you were unkind to him.”
“In my heart, I was.”
“And you regret that.”
“I do.”
“What will you do differently so that you don’t have that regret again?”
He loved the spirit behind that question. He looked away from her, thinking it over. “Hmm. Maybe I’ll take Jenny’s advice.”
“Which was?”
“She said to believe in the people you love. She said to believe they’re doing their best.”
“I think that’s good advice.”
“Kyss mig, Älskling.” Kiss me, Kat.
And she did.
***
“What about when we get home?” He held her against his chest, her back to his front, one arm around her.
“What do you mean?” Katrin asked, drowsy but happy.
“Sundays won’t be enough anymore.” He nuzzled the back of her neck.
She wasn’t sure how to answer him. She agreed with him, of course, but also wondered if they were ready for a conversation about what comes next. She had no plan. She doubted he did either.
“What would be enough?”
He kissed her neck and his answer was soft and muffled as his arm tightened around her.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Every night.”
She
turned in his arms to look at his face. “Do you mean that?”
He nodded, biting his lower lip, looking younger than he was.
“How would that work?”
“Umm. I’ll move in with you. I’ll commute.”
“From Skidoo to Kalispell? From my twin bed in a temporary, shared apartment over a medical clinic?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought it through. I just know it’s going to be hell to be away from you. I don’t want to wake up and see anything before seeing you.” He touched his forehead to hers.
She closed her eyes, loving him. “We’ll figure it out.”
“We will?”
“Mm-hm,” she murmured, smiling, falling asleep. “We will.”
***
When he woke up, her room was bright with early morning sun and she was still sleeping beside him. On Monday morning he would wake up alone. The thought made him feel hollow and cold and unbearably lonely. She brought warmth and love to his life after an adulthood of cool detachment, and now that he had basked in the glow of her presence and felt the heat of her body beside him, he would long for her desperately when they were apart.
He watched her sleep, thinking of his parents, his father who loved his mother enough to honor her final wishes. He thought of Ingrid and Kristian, who had weathered separate tours in Germany and Iraq only to find themselves together when it was over. He thought of Jenny, who loved Sam enough to leave Gardiner and start a new life for herself with him.
Prettiest thing I ever seen. Would’ve followed her to China. Would’ve followed her to hell. Wouldn’t have mattered. Might as well have up and died if I couldn’t be with her.
You’re the best of us, the one who loves the deepest and the most.
Don’t wait too long. Don’t assume she knows.
She sighed next to him, rolling into him, waking up. Her eyes opened slowly and she licked her lips, smiling at him.
“God morgon,” he whispered.
“Morning.”
“Katrin.”
“Erik.”
“Min Älskling.”
“Mm-hm. I am your sweetheart.”
“Du tillhör mig.”
“Mm-hm. I belong to you.”
“Jag älskar dig, Katrin.”
