Chapter 17
Emelie had got into the habit of walking Liv and Linnea to school in the mornings.
Emelie loved getting up and starting her day, but the best reward was getting to share a relaxed breakfast with the girls, talking about everything.
Most of the time she would wave goodbye to them in the crossing right before school and take off towards the ocean to either take a powerwalk or go jogging.
This morning she followed them all the way to school in order to catch their teacher for a chat about the Lucia procession.
There was still summer in the air, but in the mornings you could feel a premonition of autumn.
There was a crisp chill in the air, and she was happy that they had put their wind jackets on.
When they reached the school yard, Liv waved to her, running over to Kajsa and a pair of twins from her grade, Tindra and Vilda.
Linnea knew exactly which girl that was which, even though Emelie couldn’t tell the difference at all.
Linnea gave her a quick hug before starting to play with Tore and a couple of other children who were running around with their mobile phones on the hunt for Pokémon.
Emelie looked at her watch. It was ten minutes before the bell would ring, maybe she would have time to catch the teacher before class started.
The old blue-grey wooden door was right in the middle of the red brick building and above the door was an old-fashioned bell that was still used for ringing in and out of class.
The children’s schoolteacher was in the classroom writing on the blackboard.
“Hello there Emelie, I won’t shake hands now if you don’t mind, I have so much chalk dust all over me. I’ve asked for a modern whiteboard for several years now, but it seems incredibly difficult to squeeze into the budget,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“I understand that it must be a mess to work with, but I think the blackboard is much more beautiful that any modern whiteboard.”
“That’s true, I feel a bit ambivalent about getting rid of it. Maybe that’s why I haven’t pushed the headmaster very much. What can I do for you?”
Emelie gave her a recap of the plans for the Christmas market.
Maria had heard of it of course, and Emelie asked if the children could be interested in performing in a Lucia procession.
Maria was thrilled and convinced that they would be able to contribute with Lucia brides, maids, elves and gingerbread men.
To be a ‘star boy’ wasn’t that popular nowadays, but you could never know for sure.
“Would you like to stay around and discuss it with the children yourself?” Maria asked.
Emelie happily agreed, and Maria pushed a button on her desk, making the bell above the front door chime, loud and clearly. The signal made the children come rushing in and their lively blabbering and quick footsteps made it seem as though there were many more of them than just about twenty.
“Good morning, everyone, take your seats. As you can see we have a visitor here today. This is Emelie, she is responsible something very exciting that will happen here this winter. Oh and, of course, she is also Liv and Linnea’s mum.”
Maria smiled warmly at Linnea and Liv before turning to Emelie.
“Yes, hello everyone, I know several of you already, but as Maria said, my name is Emelie, and I’ve just gotten a very exciting job.
You are all too young to remember, but back in the day there used to be a Christmas market here on the island.
It was a yearly tradition and lots of people used to come from the mainland to visit the market. ”
A little fellow from first grade with light red hair, freckles and a big gap between his front teeth waved his hand in the air frenetically.
“Yes, Elias,” Maria said.
“My mum has told me about it, she always used to sell her jewellery there and my mum’s uncle used to be the Santa. He is a great Santa, sometimes he helps Santa at our place on Christmas Eve, when the real Santa doesn’t have enough time, that is.”
Several of the third graders started giggling but, Maria quickly hushed them with a raised finger and a stern look.
“How fun, then Stig must be your mum’s uncle, he will be the Santa this year too. That’s actually what I am here to talk to you about: we plan on starting up the tradition again and arranging a new Christmas market,” Emelie said.
The children couldn’t contain themselves any longer and lively conversations erupted around all the tables. Maria raised her hand to ask for silence and one by one, all the children fell silent, until the room was completely quiet.
“Nice trick,” Emelie said, impressed.
“It’s supposed to be a signal invented by girl scouts,” Maria said, making a hand gesture towards her to let her know that she should carry on.
Before Emelie left, she had got lots of ideas from the children about what they wanted to do. The third graders were responsible for arranging everything and Kajsa had been picked as Emelie’s contact in the class.
When she came back home, she realised that it was Friday.
The days seemed to blur together nowadays, when she didn’t have a regular job to go to.
She smiled to herself as she was sitting with her coffee cup in her hand and the laptop in front of her.
She could get used to this kind of life.
She quickly checked the event again and noticed that she had received even more applications for the Christmas market.
She clicked on the Excel file that her and Christer had gone over and added the salespeople that were interested in renting a table.
Sven and Eva carved and painted figurines and trays and she put them in the ‘maybe’ column.
She had also got a message from Stig regarding his niece, who was a silversmith - it had to be Elias’ mum.
Attached to the message was a link to her website and Emelie clicked on it.
She browsed through pictures of rings with inscriptions, necklaces and earrings with dangling stars and triangles.
She instantly added Stig’s niece to the ‘okay’ pile.
While reading an application from Lena in Havsgl?nta who made crochet elves, she realised that she had to ask Andreas about his aunt and her knitted sweaters.
She might as well do it immediately, so she didn’t forget, and to be completely honest, she was happy to have an excuse to contact Andreas. She texted him.
“Hello, do you know anything about an aunt knitting the famous Sardino-sweater?”
She only had time to get up and fill up her coffee cup before her phone beeped.
“Yes, I’ll look into it, can I drop by in an hour or so – I have something to ask you?”
She felt butterflies starting to flutter in her stomach. But she answered that it was fine and that she would be home. She didn’t have any more time to worry about it since Liv and Linnea came rushing through the door.
“Mum, we are going to spend the night in the stables; it’s Kajsa and Tindra and Vilda and Kajsa’s big sister and her friends – please say that I can go, please, mum?”
“But I was planning for a cosy girls’ night in,” Emilie said timidly.
“But I want to have a sleepover at Tore’s, we are going to have a pyjama party. Malin was going to ask you if it was okay.”
Just as she had finished saying so, Emelie’s phone beeped again, and it was a message from Malin. Emelie shook her head.
“Well, I guess I’ll have to have a girls’ night by myself then, if Linn doesn’t want to join me, that is.”
“No, she was going out with Oskar and some other people,” Linnea said, halfway up the stairs.
Linnea sat down in Emelie’s lap, holding her face between her hands.
“Don’t be sad, mummy, maybe you can drink wine from a box with Sussi and Stina or with Andreas?”
Emelie smiled and gave her daughter a kiss on the nose.
“It’ll be just fine, love, I’m going to be okay. Why don’t you pack what you need, Malin said that she will come and pick you up in half an hour.”
Andreas came out of his cottage and walked over to where Emelie was sitting with a blanket over her legs, enjoying the late summer night and a good book. He sat down next to her.
“I have some good news and a question, what should I start with?”
Emelie laughed.
“Take the news first.”
“I passed by my aunt’s house on the way home, she was really excited about the idea of making Sardino-sweaters again.
It seems like it was her mum who started the production, and she had all the patterns, lots of yarn and also some sweaters in storage.
Now she’s going to put her whole sewing group to work, and they would love to have a table at the market,” Andreas said.
“How exciting, I’ll make a note of it before I forget.”
“Good idea, but I still have my question.”
“Okay?”
“Would you like to have dinner over at my house tonight? It’s my turn to cook, I’ve been over to your house so many times for dinner and coffee and cake, and I have something I would like to discuss with you.”
“Wow, now you really got me curious, but that sounds great, the girls aren’t home tonight, when should I be there?”
Two hours later she had taken a shower and put on a pair of light jeans and a white shirt.
She had put up and let out her long, blonde hair at least ten times and in the end decided to keep it loose.
Some cc-cream and blush on her cheeks, mascara and a light lip-gloss would have to do.
She took a bottle of wine and walked over to Andreas’.
She tried to suppress her nervous feelings as she was crossing the lawn.
This was the closest they had ever been to a date, or perhaps it wasn’t a date at all?
What if he wanted to talk about Linn and his feelings for her?
If that was the case, she would have to try and keep cool and make him understand that Linn was too young for him.
Andreas met her in the hallway and gave her a big hug.
He was wearing a light blue linen shirt tucked down into a pair of jeans and he had a brown leather apron tied around his waist.
“It smells marvelous. What are you making?”
“It’s an Italian stew that I learned to make when I was studying. And you’re right, it smells nice, it’s much easier when you have free access to garlic, tomatoes and fresh herbs,” he said.
She took off the shawl she had carried over her shoulders and stepped into the big room that was both kitchen and living room in one – open-plan in broker language.
It wasn’t big, but well-planned and very cosy.
Andreas poured them some wine from the bottle she had brought, and they sat down at the dinner table.
The food tasted just as great as it smelled, and they chatted about the Christmas market, the nursery, the people on the island and the way her daughters had adapted so quickly to life on the island.
Andreas got up and invited her to go relax on the sofa while he made coffee.
She leaned back on the soft cushions of the corduroy sofa, looking at him with her eyes half closed.
He was handsome and sweet and seemed older thirty-something.
He turned around, their eyes met, and as so many times before they looked at each other for a bit too long before he broke the spell by asking if she wanted to have anything with the coffee.
“Over to my question,” he said a while later when they had finished the coffee.
They had refilled their glasses and were sitting, snuggled up into opposite ends of the two-seat sofa, their feet touching, and no one had tried to move them.
Bloody hell, Emelie thought, and she could feel the butterflies in her belly again.
They were having such a good time, what was he going to say?
She sat up, placed both her feet firmly on the floor while Andreas leaned a bit closer to her.
“My nursery, you know. It’s doing great and I will probably have to hire someone to deal with all the practicalities soon.
But I really need another greenhouse and I don’t have enough room over by the others.
This is a great place, and the conditions would be perfect, the only problem is that part of it would be on my land but the rest would be on yours, along the hill. ”
He got quiet and looked at her like a child who had just given his wish list to Santa Claus. Goodness, have I started becoming Christmas-obsessed too, Emelie thought to herself. She felt how all her tensions disappeared and she couldn’t help smiling with relief.
“Sounds good, tell me more about it.”
A couple of hours later they had agreed on the design of the greenhouse and where to put it. She had also gotten a colourful description of everything he wanted to grow there. She leaned back smiling and said:
“And I only have one condition.”
“Okay…”
“If I agree to the greenhouse, you will build me that table that you talked about and…”
He smiled, looking at her with raised eyebrows.
“…Perhaps help me take down that wall in the kitchen too.”
They shook hands
“It’s a deal.”
As she was walking back along the short gravel path between their houses, she didn’t feel one bit nervous anymore, and not even the chilly night air could make her walk any faster.
She smiled. They had hugged for a long time as they said goodbye and he had told her that he was thrilled that they had moved in.
She froze. Hell, he had said that it was fun that they had moved in, not that SHE had moved in.
Maybe he was still thinking about Linn? She angrily kicked a small stone on the path and it bounced back, hitting her on the bounce on the inside of her foot.
She grimaced and then quickly walked back home.