Chapter 3
“Happy birthday, darlin’!” Dot leans across the table at the Longboat, Poulsbo’s iconic waterfront Scandinavian restaurant, and clinks her glass of beer against my chilled chardonnay.
“Thanks for coming to celebrate with me,” I reply.
Beside Dot in the booth, Mom is sipping sparkling water, and next to me Gus is sketching a black hole swallowing the Milky Way on the back of his kids’ menu.
After we closed the shop for the day, we dropped Mr. Butters off at home to enjoy his carefully portioned-out kibble for senior dogs and then met Dot here. Dani is on her way.
I sip my wine and gaze out the huge plate glass window at the harbor.
The Longboat is located on the second floor of a building built on a pier over the bay just a couple of blocks from our store.
We’ve been celebrating birthday dinners here since I was a kid, and the menu and décor haven’t changed at all since then.
It’s five thirty and the place is almost empty, just us and a few senior citizens here for the early bird special.
I’m feeling increasingly nervous and off-kilter despite the tranquil setting.
It’s almost time to see if this will be the year I finally get my wish…
Outside the window, the light is golden on the water and seagulls wheel and cry.
The longest day of the year is right around the corner, so we have hours of daylight left.
It stays light now well past ten thirty at night—a fact Gus likes to mention when he’s pressing me for another half hour of reading.
“You shouldn’t fight circadian rhythm, Mom,” he told me gravely last night. “It’s not good for my nervous system.”
Mean mommy that I am, I made him go to bed anyway, because circadian rhythm or not, he’s still six years old and needs to sleep or he’s a grouch monster in the morning.
“Hey, birthday girl!” Dani calls loudly across the restaurant as she rushes in the door, late as usual.
She’s off duty and out of uniform now. She worked a night shift last night, and after taking me for our humiliating little pastry outing this morning, she went home, slept for a few hours, and is back for dinner looking refreshed and mischievous in a cherry-red romper and espadrilles.
She’s also carrying a big sign that screams in huge red letters: SLAY, QUEEN!
CONGRATS ON ROCKING 34 TRIPS AROUND THE SUN!
And below the words she’s pasted a hideous, grainy black-and-white photo of me.
I recognize it as a terrible school photo from one of our middle school yearbooks.
I’m grinning, all braces and straight blond hair and dark eyeliner, channeling Avril Lavigne.
She’s written “Reinita!!!!!!!” in red Sharpie across the bottom of the poster with seven exclamation points.
I shake my head and roll my eyes at her.
She’s carried that all the way through town from her apartment, no doubt.
Everyone has seen it. She chortles when she sees my embarrassment and sticks it to our booth with a roll of duct tape she pulls from her giant, slouchy purse.
She carries everything in that purse—Band-Aids, airplane-sized bottles of booze, bear spray, gum, a pair of handcuffs—you name it, she’s probably got it in there. It’s like blue-collar Mary Poppins bag.
“Scoot over,” she orders, sliding into the bench next to me.
“Hey, Gusto, how’s my favorite guy?” She leans across me and ruffles Gus’s hair.
If I tried to do that, or used that nickname, he’d roll his eyes and give me a long-suffering sigh, but he lets Dani get away with anything.
They have a mutual admiration society that’s endearing.
“Hey, I’ve got a joke for you,” she tells him, leaning so far across me that her ample boobs are perched in my lap. “How do you organize a party in space?”
Gus pauses and frowns, a little crease appearing between his brows. “I don’t know,” he says after a moment. “How?”
“You planet!” Dani cackles and sits upright as our waitress Freya comes to the table with an appetizer of gravlaks, dry-cured Norwegian smoked salmon served on long, skinny rye crisp crackers. Her eyes widen when she sees Dani’s sign.
“Happy birthday, Emmie,” she says, eyeing the sign.
“It was my emo era,” I tell her, pointing to my photo on the sign.
“I remember.” She purses her lips knowingly. Freya was a couple of years ahead of us in high school. “We’ve got your special cake all ready in the back,” she tells me. “In the meantime”—she pulls out her notebook—“what can I get you?”
We give her our orders. Dani orders vafler, heart-shaped Norwegian waffles served with cloudberry jam.
“Me too,” Gus pipes up.
I shake my head. “Too much sugar for dinner,” I tell him.
He nods sadly and looks down at his menu, slowly trying to pronounce the Norwegian names of dishes. He looks so disappointed.
“I’ll share my waffles with you,” Dani whispers to him across me, loud enough that I can clearly hear her. I give her a side-eye but she just grins, completely unrepentant.
“What?” she says. “It’s your birthday. Let the boy have waffles.”
I hesitate for a minute and then cave and let Gus order the vafler.
As a single parent, I sometimes really want to get to spoil Gus more. I’m the only disciplinarian, the only one making the hard decisions. Sometimes I wish I could be the fun, irresponsible one. Every now and then, it feels good to let myself be. Tonight is one of those nights.
“Did you know that the sun is so big that one million earths could fit inside it?” Gus asks us as Freya walks away to turn in our order.
“I did not,” Dani tells him, looking impressed.
Gus is constantly sharing strange facts he’s learned about the universe.
It’s a little unnerving sometimes, the things he’s learned.
Usually I think we humans would prefer to forget about the vastness of the universe; life on earth can feel overwhelming enough.
But I adore my son, despite his slightly odd space fixation.
Right now he looks so much like his father it’s uncanny.
I brush the thought away. It’s rare these days that I think of my life in France or of Romaine, the man I once loved, the man who gave me Gus by accident.
He lives in Belgium now and is married with a child.
He does not want to be involved in our lives.
He made that perfectly clear when I contacted him after the positive pregnancy test. We were colleagues in Paris, then lovers for a time, and now we are strangers, which is fine by both of us.
“Emmie.” Dani turns to me with a naughty look in her eye. “So tell me. How was that Danish from Kristensen’s? Was it really better than…” She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively.
Dot and Mom look mystified.
“Better than what?” Mom asks innocently. She pushes the appetizer plate in my direction. I take a rye crisp cracker layered with thin slices of bright orange smoked salmon and stuff it in my mouth.
“The Danish was delicious,” I say firmly. I glare warningly at Dani. Gus is busy filling in the black hole with black crayon and doesn’t seem to be paying attention to our conversation.
“Did you try one of those bear claws you brought me?” Dot asks. “That was the best bear claw I’ve had in years.”
Dani pins me with a wicked little grin. “That’s because Gunnar didn’t make it,” she says slowly. I shake my head at her, and she looks gleeful.
“But who’s baking at Kristensen’s if it isn’t Gunnar?” asks Mom. She takes a sip of her sparkling water. Alcohol aggravates her symptoms, so she doesn’t drink.
“Who indeed?” Dani wiggles her eyebrows again. I wish she’d knock it off. In that red romper she looks like a petite evil supervillain. “Who made the bear claw, Emmie?”
I sigh. There is no getting around this. “It’s Jakob,” I say. “Jakob is back.”
“Oh!” Mom claps her hands, looking delighted. “I heard he was coming home. Such a good man to help his family like this. And such a distinguished career in the Marines. I heard he was awarded a medal by the president…for bravery.”
“Hear that, Emmie? For bravery,” Dani repeats, giving me a meaningful look.
“And he can bake Danishes that are better than you-know-what…” She winks at me suggestively.
I ignore her. Sometimes Dani acts like a horny sixteen-year-old boy.
Nothing is going to happen between Jakob Kristensen and me.
I unintentionally made sure of that years ago, and I’ve regretted it ever since.
Mom looks from Dani to me in puzzlement. I ignore Dani and finish my rye crisp. Our meals come, and Gus peers down at his waffles. They’re so pretty—golden, and the hearts are arranged in a pattern that looks like a flower.
“Mommy,” Gus whispers, leaning into me. “Can I have courage sprinkles on these? Please?” I hesitate, thinking about the sugar content of those waffles, but then I relent.
“Sure, honey.” I reach for my purse. I always carry a little plastic shaker of sprinkles in the back pocket of my purse nestled next to the wet wipes and an airsickness bag I swiped from a flight years ago, just in case of sudden vomit.
As a mom, you can never be too prepared for…
well, everything, really. The sprinkles are a big part of my mom kit, an essential I always have with me. We are BIG fans of sprinkles.