Chapter 26
From the moment they arrive, Nina and Nils are like puppies at play.
I have never seen my sister like this—radiant, relaxed, even a little rambunctious.
One afternoon, while I am sorting Dad’s medications for the coming week, I look out the window and see them having an impromptu snowball fight.
Nils is younger than Nina, closer to my age, and he’s not an academic, as her other boyfriends have been—he’s a chef.
It’s a surprising choice for my sister, but it’s clear that something has shifted since she left for Europe.
A weight has lifted, or perhaps it has been transposed to me.
As I have become more ensconced, Nina has become more liberated.
Observing the two of them scampering through the snow, I feel a flicker of envy.
But my sister deserves this renaissance—she did her time in the woods.
Even before she took care of our father, she somehow served as the pillar of our family.
From a young age, she always had a seriousness about her.
I’m glad she is finally learning to frolic.
On Christmas Day, after we have opened our presents and no one has won the lottery, we all settle into different corners of the house.
My father rests by the fire with Dominic, and Nils watches Home Alone for the first time, trying to understand why it has such an outsized cultural impact in the US.
I am in the kitchen, clearing crumbs and drying dishes, feeling good about the state of things.
Nils is easy to be around, and he balances out some of the other dynamics between the three of us.
He is easygoing with my dad, and he helps Nina to not take things too seriously.
Nina seizes the moment to pull me aside. She grins but says nothing. I grin back. She keeps grinning, so I grin more. This is getting weird.
“Cricket,” she says, as if it’s obvious, “I’m pregnant.”
I assume it’s a practical joke—a bit of Nordic whimsy to brighten these dark winter days. But then it dawns on me that she hasn’t had a drink since she’s been home. She keeps grinning and waits for me to respond.
“Seriously?” I say, my disbelief quickly shifting from shock to joy to fear and finally to wonder. I can feel my face move through each emotion.
“Yes! Crazy, right? Obviously it wasn’t part of my plan, but I’m so happy. And when I told Nils, he didn’t flinch. He is totally on board. Maybe even more excited than I am.”
“Oh my god,” I say, as it sinks in. “Oh my god! But how … Where … What happens now? Are you going to stay in Stockholm?”
“Fuck yes,” says Nina without hesitation.
“I mean, for now. I’ll have the baby there, so it can be an EU citizen and I can get that sweet, sweet Swedish maternity leave.
And with Mom in London, it just makes sense.
She can visit when I need help. It’s a good setup. Somehow life suddenly feels … easy.”
Again, I understand her joy. After four years of caring for our father, with very little in the way of medical or government support—because that’s not really America’s thing—she is now reaping the benefits of a system that actually wants to help its citizens thrive.
Swedes don’t need to win the lottery; they already have.
I hug Nina as tears start to well in my eyes. I’m thrilled for her, but sad to feel like I am losing her again, this time in a more permanent way. Initially, we thought she would only be in Sweden for a year, maybe two. Now, it sounds like it’s indefinite.
“It’s still really early. I’m seven weeks,” she says, also tearing up.
We both look down and admire her nonexistent bump.
“And I want to tell Dad, but I don’t know if he’ll get it.
Honestly, it seems like he doesn’t really know who I am.
Like he vaguely recognizes me, but he doesn’t know why I’m here. ”
“Yeah,” I say. “He acts that way toward me, too. I think it’s just a new phase that we’re in.” Then it hits me like lightning. “Wait, Nina. I think he already knows you’re pregnant. On some level, I think he knows.”
“What do you mean? How?”
“A few weeks ago, we were talking about you, and he said something about your being pregnant. And about how humans gestate for three months.”
“What?”
“And when we were shopping last week, he wanted to buy a pair of tiny socks ‘for the baby.’ Holy shit, Nina. I told you!”
Her eyes widen. Maybe this is the thing that will finally convince her I’m right about his psychic abilities.
“I know you think I’m insane,” I go on, “but I swear he’s tapped into some larger consciousness. He knew you were pregnant before you even got here, and I had no idea until five minutes ago! You’ve got to admit that’s weird.”
“Okay, I’ll admit it: you’re unusually dense.”
I make a semi-amused face, and she relents. “Okay, fine. It is weird.”
“Thank you.” I’m relieved to finally earn this acknowledgment. This seems like as good a time as any to tell her about the day when Dad saw Seth at the boathouse, and about my conversation with Carl and Paula on Thanksgiving that validated my suspicions. I divulge everything in one long torrent.
When I’m done explaining, Nina is silent.
I wait for her to be fascinated and maybe even impressed, but suddenly, her face hardens and she seems annoyed. “I thought you said you were done with that divination stuff.” She sounds stern, like the Nina of yore. Pre-Nils Nina. The Nina who had to keep everyone else on track.
“I am done with it,” I say. “I’m just trying to fill you in on what has been going on. I can’t help it if he keeps having premonitions.”
“But you’re encouraging it, Cricket.” I must look crestfallen, because she softens her tone.
“Look, I know life gets boring here, especially in the winter. And I know you really believe Dad has superpowers, or whatever. But this is overboard. He’s not channeling Carl’s dead mother.
He’s not communing with Seth. This isn’t Beetlejuice. ”
I want to continue to argue my case, but it’s clear Nina doesn’t want to take this mental leap with me, so I stand down. “You’re right. I guess I just got carried away. It felt like something to do.”
“I get it. But that’s what Netflix is for.”
“Right.”
“It’s just too confusing for him, to play these games. You shouldn’t encourage him when he’s seeing things that aren’t there.” Nina pauses, then adds: “You know, he’s lost a lot of ground since I left.”
This final comment feels like an indictment of my ability to properly take care of our dad.
Suddenly my confidence is shaken. Maybe Nina can see things more clearly from her new vantage point than I can from within this closed system.
My eyes fill with tears. Maybe I really have been imagining that our dad is a seer to try to keep him vital, relevant.
Maybe I’m just trying to ward off his earthly decline by assigning him an otherworldly power.
Nina pulls me in for a gentle hug. “I know this is hard—being a caregiver. Believe me, I know.” This would be the perfect opportunity for her to throw in an I told you so. But instead, she surprises me: “You’re doing such a good job.”
“I am?” It feels like getting a positive performance review from a hard-to-please boss.
“Yes,” says Nina, rubbing my shoulders. “I mean, you do things a little differently than I would, but Dad seems happy. You’ve really stepped up, and I’m proud of you.”
The acknowledgment lands like a yearned-for gift.
I hadn’t realized until now just how desperate I’ve been to get some praise, or at least credit, for the time I’ve put in.
From day to day, no one is here to witness my work except my father, which means that my efforts largely evaporate into the wind.
I’ve tried to be at peace with that, to not need a gold star.
But earning Nina’s praise feels huge; it’s something I’ve sought my whole life.
“But no more prophecy stuff, okay?” She raises her eyebrows and waits for me to comply.
“Okay. No more.”
She yawns, looks at the clock, and announces that it’s way past her bedtime, but as she leaves the kitchen, she turns. “Oh, and Cricket, why are you still sleeping in that single bed, you weirdo? The mattress is so old it’s literally crunchy. Don’t you want to move into the bigger room?”
“Your room?”
She laughs, as if she has zero attachment to the room or anything else here. “I’m very happy to relinquish it.”
It hadn’t even occurred to me to move rooms, but later that night, as I lie in bed with Dandy the one-eyed lion, I have to laugh.
Why haven’t I upgraded to the queen bed across the hall?
Laziness? An inferiority complex? Have I been caught in a psychological sinkhole from childhood?
I don’t have the answer, but I resolve to claim the adult-sized bed once Nina and Nils leave.
It’s time to level up. I’m not a child anymore—I’m emerging from the netherworld that comes after childhood and supposedly leads to adulthood, and I deserve a better mattress.
The next morning, Nils tries to convince me to do an ice plunge with him.
I tell him it’s a hard no, but we all agree to bear witness.
Armed with blankets, towels, and thermoses of hot coffee, we make our way through the knee-deep snow down to the pond, where Nils has already prepared a large hole in the ice.
I must admit, he has done excellent work.
The square-shaped opening is tidy and close enough to the dock that the plungee can easily pull themselves out of the water.
Nils sheds his robe—thankfully, he is wearing trunks—and walks out onto the ice. This is the kind of thing my father would have eagerly participated in back in the day. Now, he looks on with wonder, as if Nils is performing a magic trick, as if anything could happen next.
Nils lowers himself to a sitting position, dangling his legs in the frigid water, and then slides like a seal down into the black hole.
He remains under the surface for an uncomfortably long moment while we all hold our breath in solidarity.
Finally, he pops up, shakes his head like a retriever, takes a fortifying inhale, and says, “What? It’s warm! ”
He continues to breathe and tread water as Nina times him for three minutes, finally counting down, “Three, two, one! Okay, you’re done. You did it.”
In no rush to get out, Nils submerges himself once more and then pulls himself up onto the dock so casually that one might think he was emerging from a tropical lagoon. He towels off and begins doing weird stretches.
“I’m impressed,” I say.
Nils gestures toward the hole in the ice. “It’s not too late, Cricket…”
“Next year,” I say.
As Nils dons his robe and we start to move in the direction of the house, my father stops, looks back toward the pond, then asks, “What about the other boy?”
“What boy?” asks Nina.
“The younger one who went in first. He’s still in the pond.”
Nina furrows her brow, perplexed, but I know exactly what is happening. He must have seen him again.
“Seth? Was it Seth?” I ask my father.
Nina looks at me with horror. “Cricket!”
Our dad looks befuddled, as if he is trying to piece something together.
“Don’t worry, Dad,” Nina reassures him while also managing to shoot me a glare. “You’re just a little confused. Let’s go up to the house and get warm.”
I relent, but this time, I can’t be talked out of it. When it comes to our father, I am the authority now. He saw what he saw, and I know what I know.