9. Sven
SVEN
I couldn't sleep.
The window was open. I could hear the water moving against the rocks below the house. I'd always needed that sound to sleep and I'd gotten it from her.
Now the house was empty and the sound wasn't enough.
I lay there for an hour. Then another. The ceiling fan turned slow circles overhead. The sheets smelled like her soap. Lavender and something else I'd never been able to name.
She'd been gone three days.
Three days since she'd walked into the shucking house and closed the door and left me standing on the dock with a necklace she didn't want and a cruise I couldn't describe and a marriage I didn't know how to fix.
Three days since I'd told her I loved her and she'd said she knew.
Not that she loved me back. Just that she knew.
Like it was a fact. Like it was something she'd written down somewhere and filed away. Something true and also not enough.
I'd called her six times since then. She hadn't answered. I'd driven by Boone & Daughter twice and seen her truck parked outside and turned around before I reached the lot.
I didn't know what I'd say if I saw her.
I didn't know what there was left to say.
I got up.
The house was too big. Too quiet. Every room I walked through felt like it was accusing me of something.
I went downstairs. The kitchen was dark. I didn't turn on the lights.
I sat at the table with my laptop and pulled up the cruise booking.
She'd asked me where it was going. I hadn't known.
I hadn't booked it. I'd told Deshawn to book it, past ten at night, from my desk, in about four minutes. Twelve days, Scandinavia, the best cabin they had. He'd asked if I wanted to see the itinerary and I'd said no.
Four minutes. Maybe less. And it hadn't been me who did it.
Fifteen thousand nine hundred dollars. One passenger. Somebody else's afternoon.
That had been the end of it.
Beyond the price tag and the cabin class, I hadn't thought about it at all.
Now I opened the file.
Twelve days. The Scandinavian Heritage. Copenhagen to Helsinki.
Port stops: Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki.
I scrolled down to the shore excursions.
Day Three: Couples' harbor tour in Oslo. Explore the fjords and historic waterfront with your partner, followed by a traditional Norwegian seafood dinner for two.
Day Five: Sunset dinner in Stockholm's archipelago. Share a romantic evening cruise through the islands as the northern light lingers over the water.
Day Seven: Private tour of Helsinki's Market Square and design district. Discover Finnish culture together, ending with an intimate dinner in a restored merchant house.
Day Nine: Couples' sauna experience and Baltic seafood tasting. Unwind together in a traditional Finnish sauna before enjoying a private dinner overlooking the harbor.
I read it twice.
Then I read it again.
Couples' cooking class. Romantic evening. Intimate dinner for two. Toast to your love.
I'd sent my wife on a honeymoon.
Alone.
I closed the laptop and sat there in the dark.
The drawer where I'd put the necklace was three feet from my hand. I'd shoved it in there the night she wouldn't take it. Hadn't looked at it since.
I opened the drawer now.
The navy blue velvet box from Garrison Fine Jewelry sat on top of a stack of old bills and receipts. I pulled it out.
She'd asked me on the dock if I'd picked it out myself or if I'd had somebody do that too.
I'd told her the truth. I'd gone in for ten minutes and let them choose.
I opened the box now. The compass rose pendant caught the light from the hallway. Small diamond at the north point. Thin gold chain.
It looked expensive. It looked like something a man would buy for his wife when he didn't know what else to do.
I picked up the receipt that was folded underneath it.
The itemized list. The price. The date.
And at the bottom, in small print:
Per recommendation of S. Astala, selected our Compass Collection pendant in 18k gold with .15ct diamond. Customer approved.
I read it three times.
Simone had sent me to this jeweler. Simone had called ahead. Simone had told them what to recommend.
I'd walked in and nodded and paid and walked out and told myself I'd bought my wife a gift.
I put the receipt back and closed the box.
Then I sat there and felt the full weight of it.
I'd thought I'd at least picked the jeweler.
I hadn't even done that.
I sat there in the dark and felt the weight of how little I'd done for her.
How little I'd actually chosen.
How much I'd delegated. Outsourced. Handed off to people I paid to care about the things I didn't have time to care about myself.
The cruise I didn't read. The necklace I didn't pick.
The weekend I'd scheduled a month from now. After the Helsinki delivery started. After things settled down.
Like things were ever going to settle down.
Like I was ever going to stop building long enough to actually be there.
She'd asked me two questions on the dock and I hadn't been able to answer either one.
Where was the cruise going?
I hadn't known.
Who picked the necklace?
I'd told her the jeweler recommended it.
I hadn't told her Simone sent me there. That Simone called ahead. That Simone probably described exactly what kind of necklace a man buys his wife when he's trying to fix something he doesn't understand.
I sat there and tried to think of one thing I'd done for her in the last six months that I'd actually chosen myself.
One thing that hadn't come from a consultant or an assistant or Simone.
One thing I'd picked because I knew her. Because I'd thought about what she would want instead of what would solve the problem fastest.
I couldn't think of anything.
Every gift had been a transaction. Every gesture had been a delegation. Every time I'd tried to show her I loved her, I'd shown her I didn't have time to love her myself.
So I'd paid someone else to do it.
The house was silent except for the sound of the water below.
I pulled her ring out of my pocket. I'd been carrying it since the dock. Since she'd taken it off and handed it to me and told me she needed me to stop treating her like something that needs fixing.
The gold was warm from being against my body.
I held it up to the thin light from the hallway and turned it slowly.
Eight years.
Eight years and I'd spent the last six months handing her off to people who could do a better job of caring about her than I could.
I put the ring back in my pocket.
The knock came just after midnight.
I got up fast. I crossed the kitchen in four steps and opened the door before I'd thought about it.
It wasn't Etta.
"Sven." Simone smiled. "I saw your light on."
She was inside before I could say anything. She closed the door behind her and turned to face me.
"I wanted to check on you," she said. "You seemed off tonight at dinner."
"I'm fine."
"Are you?"
"It's late, Simone."
"I know. I'm sorry. I just—" She looked at me. Concern in her eyes. Or something that looked like it. "I've been worried about you."
"You don't need to be."
"I think I do." She came closer. Not touching me yet.
Just close enough that I could smell her perfume.
Something sharp and expensive. "You've been carrying all of this alone for months now.
The Helsinki deal. The fleet expansion. The new distribution network.
The Maryland processors. And on top of all of that, your wife?—"
"Don't."
"Sven." Her voice was soft. Kind. The way you'd talk to someone who was hurt and didn't know it yet.
"I'm not trying to overstep. I know this is personal.
But I've watched you run yourself into the ground trying to hold everything together.
Your business. Your marriage. And I don't think you can keep doing both. "
"I've got it."
"Can you?" She tilted her head. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you're tearing yourself apart trying to be two different people. The man who's building an empire. And the man who's trying to make his wife happy. And those two people want different things."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it?" She reached out and put her hand on my arm.
Her fingers were cool through my shirt. "You've built something incredible.
You're about to open Scandinavia. You're about to double your fleet.
You're about to become the largest operation on this coast. Maybe the largest operation in the mid-Atlantic.
And every time you get close to actually seeing what you've built, every time you're about to step into it, you turn around and go back to?—"
"Stop."
"To your quaint little wife," she said quietly. "Who doesn't want to grow. Who doesn't want to change. Who wants you to stay exactly where you were eight years ago. Small. Safe. Hers."
I looked at her hand on my arm.
"Don't call her that," I said.
"I'm sorry." But she didn't move her hand. "I know you love her. I know this is hard. But Sven, you can't keep shrinking yourself to fit inside her world. You're better than that. You've always been better than that."
"You don't know anything about my wife."
"I know she left you," Simone said. "I know she walked away from everything you've built.
Everything you've done for her. I know she's living in a room above a shucking house instead of the home you gave her.
And I know you're sitting here in the dark waiting for her to come back when she's made it very clear she doesn't want what you're offering. "
"She needs time."
"She needs you to be someone you're not." Simone's voice was gentle. Sympathetic. "She needs you to be the man you were before all of this. Before Scandinavia. Before the expansion. She wants you small again. And you're not a small man anymore."
She stepped closer.
"You could have all of it," she said quietly. "The distribution. The fleet. Scandinavia. You could stop fighting to make her understand and just build what you're supposed to build. You could?—"
She kissed me.
I shoved her back. Hard.
She stumbled. Caught herself against the counter.
"What the hell are you doing?" I said.
"Sven—"
The revulsion was physical. Immediate. Like something wrong had touched me. I could still feel where her mouth had been and I wanted it gone.
"Get away from me."
"I thought—" She straightened. Smoothed her shirt. "You've been so unhappy. I thought you wanted?—"
"You thought wrong."
"Did I?" She was looking at me now like I'd done something to her.
Like I'd led her here and then pulled back at the last second.
"You've spent every night this week with me.
Late dinners. Calls that go until midnight.
You told me things you haven't told her.
About the business. About what you're building. About what you want. You?—"
"I talked to you about work," I said. "That's all it was."
"That's not all it was and you know it."
"Yes," I said. "It was."
She laughed. It was a bitter sound. Hurt underneath it.
Or something performing hurt. "You really don't see it, do you?
How much smaller you've gotten. How much you've folded yourself up trying to fit inside her little world.
The Sven I met two years ago wouldn't have thought twice about Scandinavia.
He would've seen the opportunity and taken it.
He wouldn't have needed permission. He wouldn't have spent six months apologizing for being good at what he does. "
"I don't need her permission."
"Don't you?" She gestured at the house. The empty kitchen.
The laptop still open on the table. "Then why are you still here?
Why are you sitting in the dark in an empty house looking up cruise itineraries for a woman who left you?
Who told you to your face she doesn't know what she wants from you? Who won't even answer your calls?"
I didn't say anything.
"She's holding you back," Simone said. "She always has. And I think part of you knows it."
"You need to leave."
"In a minute." She crossed her arms. "Just tell me one thing first. Do you really think she's going to come back? Do you really think she's going to wake up one day and decide she's okay with what you've built? With who you are now?"
"She's my wife."
"She was your wife," Simone said. "She left. That's what people do when they're done."
"She's not done."
"Isn't she?" Simone's voice was quiet now.
Almost kind again. "Sven, I'm trying to help you.
I'm trying to show you that there's another way.
That you don't have to keep choosing between your work and your marriage.
You could just choose your work. You could build everything you're supposed to build.
And you could do it with someone who actually wants to be part of it. "
I looked at her.
"Someone like you," I said.
"Yes," she said simply. "Someone like me."
"Don't call my wife quaint," I said.
She blinked. "What?"
"You called her quaint. Don't."
"Sven, I didn't mean?—"
"The woman you just called quaint out-sailed me on my own boat twenty minutes after I offered to take her out on it," I said. "I was worth something that day. I haven't been worth much since."
Simone stared at me.
The kitchen was very quiet.
"I think you should go," I said.
"You're serious."
"Yes."
"You're choosing her." She said it like I'd told her something impossible. Like I'd said I was giving up gravity. "After everything she's done. After she left you. After she made it clear she doesn't want what you're building. You're still choosing her."
"Every time," I said.
"She doesn't deserve you."
"Get out."
"Sven, listen to me. Think about what you're doing. The Helsinki deal. The contracts. The Virtanen connection. I built that. I opened Scandinavia for you. I brought you Kari and Leena. I negotiated the delivery terms. I set up the Maryland processing. You can't just throw that away because?—"
"I'm not throwing it away," I said. "I'm removing you from it."
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called Deshawn.
He answered on the second ring. "Sven? It's midnight. What's?—"
"I need you to revoke Simone Astala's access to all systems," I said. "Effective immediately."
Simone went very still.
"Her email. Her building access. Her login credentials. Everything."
"Sven—" Deshawn's voice was careful. "Can this wait until morning? We can sit down and?—"
"No. Do it now."
There was a pause. "All right. Give me ten minutes."
"Thank you."
I hung up.
Simone was still staring at me.
"Her contract is terminated," I said. "I'll have the paperwork to you by the end of the week. You'll be paid out through the end of the quarter."
"You're going to fucking regret this," she said.
"Get out."