33. Dexter
DEXTER
Freya’s friend was gone when I returned. Thank God. I was too bruised and raw to make small talk with a stranger in a hospital room. Freya drowsed off and on till the nurse came by with the release paper work. I took her home, thinking it was funny that she hadn’t asked about Viggo.
Fuck, I wished I spoke Swedish.
“Go to bed. I’ll sleep on the sofa,” I said, pushing open the door to Freya’s apartment. “I can drive to Wood Hollow in the morning.”
Freya eased herself into an armchair and sighed. “I think you should go home now. Talk to him.”
“I tried, but…” I hung my head. “I think, um…I think this feels extra real now.”
“To all of us.” She tried to smile, but her eyes were heavy. “Viggo will be back, you know. For the baby. When we need him, he’ll come. It’s who he is. A protector, a knight in shining armor.”
“I know.” And I knew that still wasn’t enough. He couldn’t be my knight in shining armor. That wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right.
“Sometimes,” she continued, “—it’s hard to ask for the thing we want most. You know?”
I frowned. “You should go to sleep. It’s been a long day. I’ll be here. I just…I’ll need to leave early to meet Janey at the store and—”
“Go, Dex,” she said, her gaze almost pleading. “Go now. Alice is next door. I’ll be okay. Please. You have things to do.”
The forest was scary at night. The trees were too tall, too close together, crowding the sky, and nocturnal animals with beady eyes clung to the shadows.
I drove the winding roads at a snail’s pace, on the lookout for deer and other wildlife.
It was pitch dark and eerie with it. I was relieved to finally pull onto my street and into my garage.
The house was dark, too. And cold. I switched on the pendant lights above the island and surveyed the clean kitchen.
Viggo hadn’t come over. There was no trace of dinner preparations, no pan soaking in the sink overnight, no need to wipe down the countertops.
It was like it had been in the days before he’d banged on my door and demanded to be let in…
so he could punch me. I smiled, thinking of how angry I’d been.
The nerve of that guy, barging into my life.
The nerve of that guy…walking away.
Sometimes it’s hard to ask for the thing we want most.
I left the lights on and stumbled up the stairs, leaning heavily on the banister. I should have gone straight to bed, but I hesitated at the nursery, resting my forehead on the door before pushing it open.
It was as we’d left it a few weeks ago. The crib and the rocking chair were the perfect new additions. As soon as the bedding was washed, we’d be ready.
Correction: I’d be ready.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and ran a lazy finger on the crib railing, the dresser, and the bookshelves.
I studied the collection of baby books—some were sturdy board books, and others were favorites of mine as a kid, The Giving Tree, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Green Eggs and Ham, and so many more.
I’d dreamed of reading to my kids, one book after the other.
I wanted to do everything my parents hadn’t…
as if that might patch one of the many holes inside me.
Maybe it would work. Or maybe it was unfair to think a child could heal broken pieces.
Chances were high that I’d end up creating my own brand of dysfunction.
Wasn’t that what humans excelled at? Fucking up and passing on the trauma?
I sat gingerly in the rocking chair Viggo had made, my teeth chattering. I splayed my palms along the armrest and imagined him shaping the wood and sanding it precisely…with intention.
Somehow, I knew he’d made the crib for Annika—something to honor her connection to Freya. A penance, a token of mourning, an expression of love through grief.
At least that was how it had started.
Now…it was something more. There was love in the dresser, the bookshelf, the rocker, in the countless hours spent in his workshop, in the doctors’ office, on the road between Wood Hollow and Burlington.
It was for us. For me, for a child he didn’t know but would accept as his own if I were brave enough to ask. If I were brave enough to try.
Jag ?lskar dig. I repeated the words over and over in my head so I could look up the translation later, but I didn’t need to. I knew what they meant.
The realization rocked me to the core. He’d told me what he wanted. He’d just said it in another language. My eyes welled and tears ran down my face unchecked.
So this was love.
It was simple and yet, so complex. Two people with a fuckton of baggage, comparing notes and finding puzzle pieces that shouldn’t fit and somehow did. There was magic here. I could feel it. But I was afraid that once again, the timing was all wrong. And it fucking broke my heart.