Chapter 21
“Are you really going out riding today?”
Emelie peeked out the window where the leaves were rustling. The wind played with the orange leaves on the lawn and tugged the barren branches of the trees.
“Yes, of course,” Liv shouted from the top floor.
“But isn’t it slippery outside? We had negative temperatures last night, you know?” Emelie said sharply.
Her middle daughter ran down the stairs and disappeared into the mud room.
“Where are my jodhpurs? And my riding shoes? Oh, everything is just gone!”
Emelie went out to help her and pointed at the shoes that were standing in the hallway and the trousers that were in the drying cabinet.
She grabbed Liv’s shoulder, making her stand still for about ten seconds.
Enough time to ask her about the slippery roads again.
Liv rolled her eyes at her overprotective mother.
“But mum, I’m riding horses! Of course they can walk outside even when it’s slippery. Don’t you understand that?” she said.
The expression in Liv’s eyes told Emelie that she knew nothing about horses and that she was silly for thinking anything could go wrong.
Liv was partially right. Emelie didn’t know much about horses, but it wasn’t impossible that something could happen.
It had been cold for a couple of days and October had brought freezing temperatures.
A car honked outside, and Liv squeezed her trousers and shoes into the bag, yelled bye and ran out the door.
“Just don’t take any unfamiliar paths!” Emelie yelled after her.
She returned to the sofa and her cup of tea.
Today, Andreas would come over with her new kitchen table.
The old table had moved out into the glass porch and Emelie had scrubbed the whole kitchen to make the most out of her new piece of furniture.
Which was hard with the wallpaper covered with Santas and the wall towards the living room that made the kitchen too small.
But after all of Linn’s intense baking, a thorough clean had been necessary.
She was standing in the doorway to the kitchen and suddenly she made up her mind; she was going to stop daydreaming about a new kitchen and actually put up new wallpaper and take down that wall.
As soon as the Christmas market was over, she would get rid of these Santa walls. It was settled.
Andreas hadn’t let her see the table before it was finished, so she didn’t know what it looked like and had to trust his good taste.
Which she did. The one time she had been over to his place to have dinner she had noticed that he was good at matching colours and shapes, which was probably necessary in his profession of planning other people’s flower beds.
She sat down on the sofa and started going through her notes.
Emelie and Andreas had finished the planning for the Christmas market and now everything was running smoothly.
The coming weekend they would clean the community centre, and everyone had offered to help.
Birgitta, Stig, Sussi, Stina and Christer.
Linn’s baking skills were just getting better and better and now she had gotten a grip on almost all the different recipes from the baking book, and Stig’s freezer was starting to fill up with rolls, Lucia buns, saffron cookies and cream rings.
Everything was under control, Emelie thought to herself, shutting down all the Excel-files and opening Netflix instead. Now she was going to watch a movie.
Two hours later there was a ring on the door, and Andreas was standing outside, saluting her and smiling.
“You ordered a kitchen table?”
Emelie laughed and made a half-hearted salute back.
“It’s like you’ve been in the military,” she said, grinning.
“Of course I have,” he said, waving to her to come out into the driveway.
“Aren’t you way too young for that? I didn’t even think you got called anymore?”
“No, it isn’t obligatory as when my old man was young, but you can if you want to, and I did. Almost a year in freezing cold Boden. It was no game, I’ll tell you that” he said and opened the back doors to the lorry that was parked by the side of the road.
She peeked into the car, seeing her table. It was covered and taped with several layers of plastic and all she could see were the legs. She clapped her hands.
“Oh, this is so much fun!”
Andreas pushed a red button, making the platform go down.
Then they both got on the platform, and he pushed a black button making it go up again.
They grabbed the ends of the table and carried it out into the platform before Andreas pushed them down again.
Once again, they grabbed the table again and carried it up the stairs and into the hallway.
It took some trying, but they finally made it through the kitchen door and Emelie reminded him about his promise to help her take down the wall.
“And I plan on putting up new wallpaper. As soon as the Christmas fair is over there’s nothing stopping me, she said, shoving the table into its place in front of the kitchen window.
“Good idea. Christmas in the kitchen all year round isn’t that great, I suppose,” Andreas said and started cutting the tape holding the plastic wrapping together.
He peeled layer after layer of the plastic away, and soon the table was standing in front of them.
The tabletop was made of four broad planks that Andreas had cut and glued together.
The table was rectangular but the corners where rounded and when Emelie stroke a hand over the wood it felt as soft as velvet.
“Andreas, what an amazing table! It’s lovely. Thank you!” she said and couldn’t help but give him a hug.
His embrace was soft and warm and Emelie got a feeling of being home while her whole body tingled. They were interrupted by the beeping of Emelie’s phone. She picked it up and looked at the screen.
“Blimey, it’s time for line dance. I must hurry up. But goodness, this table! It’s so beautiful! You could get rich selling these,” she said to Andreas.
“Before you go, I have something I want to show you,” he said, squatting and pointing to the underpart of the table.
Emelie also squatted and looked. There were letters burnt into the underside of the table: Emelie’s table, by Andreas.
“Christ, that is beautiful! You truly are an amazing guy,” she said.
Before she had time to think, she had placed a kiss on his cheek. She realised what she had just done way too late, and quickly got on her feet, bumping her head right into the heavy table top.
“Bloody hell!”
She rubbed her head and it hurt so badly, she saw stars.
“Whoops, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, it will pass,” she said, teeth clenched.
The truth was that it hurt terribly, but all she could think about was the kiss and how embarrassing everything was.
“I need to run, but the table is magical! Talk to you later, ok? I’ll lock the front door so go out the back,” she shouted, pulling on her jacket and her shoes and running out the door.
When they had practiced line dancing for two full hours, they took a break and rested. Sussi had borrowed the community centre for rehearsals since it was too cold and slippery to try any Electric Slide-steps out on the pier.
“Remember, a line dancer doesn’t make mistakes, only variations,” Sussi shouted when her pupils were doubting their own abilities.
Emelie sat down by the table with a cup of coffee and one of Linn’s cookies.
She picked up her phone and jumped when she saw that Andreas had called and texted her several times.
She got up and went into the cloakroom to listen to his voice message.
While she was standing there, Sussi came out from the bathroom.
“What’s happened? You are as pale as a ghost,” she said, worried.
Emelie nodded and started tying her shoes.
“Liv has fallen off the horse and Andreas is with her at the hospital on the mainland. Bloody hell, why didn’t I have my phone on? How am I supposed to get there now?”
She angrily zipped her jacket and wrapped her scarf twice around her neck. Sussi looked like she was thinking about something.
“But have you talked to Andreas? Why is he there?”
“No, I haven’t spoken to him, he had left a message. It seems like her leg is broken. Oh, my poor little girl, and I wasn’t even there, Jesus Christ…”
She had tears in her eyes and Sussi gave her a hug.
“Give him a call and see how it’s going before just rushing over there,” she said with determination.
Emelie nodded, found Andreas’ number and called him up. He answered after just one ring.
“There you are! Everything is fine with Liv, no worries” he said in a calming voice.
“What happened?”
“The horse took a wrong step and fell, and Liv fell off landed on her leg so it’s broken, but the doctor said it was a nice, clean break,” Andreas explained.
Emelie squatted on the floor, supporting her forehead with one hand.
“But Christ, my poor girl, is she okay?”'
“Yes, she was sad at first, but now she had gotten some ambientes and painkillers and they are putting a cast on her. Now everything is quite all right, right, love?”
Emelie heard him turning towards her daughter.
“Is she there? Can I talk to her?
“Sure, here she is.”
She heard a rustling sound as Andreas passed one of his headphones over to Liv.
“Hello mum, I’m fine. They are putting a cast on me now and it’s cold and it tickles a little,” Liv giggled.
“Love, how are you doing? Are you okay? It sounds so, so scary falling off the horse like that. Was it?”
“Yes, yes it was, but Filippa from the stables said that Tellus was okay, it has a swollen hoof, that’s all, so that’s good,” Liv said.
“I’m so sorry that I’m not there, but I was at line dancing rehearsals and then I don’t have my phone with me. I’m so sorry, my, sweet, sweet girl…”
“It doesn’t matter! Andreas came and gave me a ride and he has been with me all along,” she said. “Now they're saying that they are almost done here, so now you can talk to him again.”
The rustling sound returned and then she heard Andreas’ deep voice.
“I’ll come over right away. I’ll take the next ferry and come get her,” Emelie said.
“There’s no point. We are almost ready and then we’ll go back home. So, you just go home and meet us there, okay?”
She realised that he was right, even if it felt strange, him taking care of her daughter.
She was so used to dealing with everything concerning the girls on her own that she hardly knew how to share the responsibility.
It wasn’t at all unpleasant, now that she thought about it.
Not that Andreas would become some sort of bonus father to them, but still.
“Okay, I’ll do that. I’ll see you at home. When do you think you’ll be there?”
“In approximately 45 minutes. We’ll stop by the pharmacy to pick up Liv’s painkillers on the way,” he said, and they hung up.
Sussi gave her a troubled look, and she told her the whole story. Then she dropped down onto a chair in the cloak room. Sussi stroked her back and Emelie managed to get her pulse down a little.
“It’s nice that he was there for Liv”, Sussi said.
“Yes, but I wasn’t, and it feels terrible,” Emelie responded.
“Hey, what is it you say? That it takes a village to raise a child – or rather – an island. You understand that, right? And Andreas seems like he would make a pretty good father,” she said and got a dreamy look in her eyes.
Emelie suddenly remembered the discussion about Andreas donating sperm for a future baby.
“Yes, I suppose it’s a sign of good daddy qualities, if anything,” Emelie said, smiling at Sussi.
Forty minutes later, Andreas came back with his precious cargo and Emelie ran out into the driveway to greet them. Liv was in the backseat of the car with her leg in a cast and her eyelids looked heavy.
“She has gotten some painkillers and is a bit out of it,” Andreas said, lifting her out of the backseat.
“Oh love, how are you feeling?”
“I’m just fine,” Liv said, with a lopsided smile.
“Jesus Christ, the kid is high,” Emelie chuckled silently, and Andreas smiled back at her and nodded.
They carried her inside, putting her on the sofa.
Liv wanted to watch ‘The Saddle Club’ and Emelie put on the telly and gave her a glass of cordial and some crackers.
Then they sat down at the new kitchen table, having a cup of coffee.
They hardly had time to take the first sip before Kajsa, Linn, Linnea and Tore came rushing in.
“How is she?”
“Was it actually broken?”
“Did Liv fall off a giant horse?”
The last question came from Tore, and Emelie hushed them, and they tiptoed over to the sofa where Liv had fallen asleep with her broken leg in a big cast in front of her.
They were very impressed with the big cast that covered her skin from the ankle and up to the thigh.
Then they silently walked back into the kitchen and Linn found more cookies and cordial and refilled their coffee cups while Andreas told them what had happened.
“It was Liv who told Kajsa’s mum to call me when you didn’t answer,” he said.
“Why didn’t they call me?” Linn asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Perhaps because you don’t have a driver’s license, and because they realised immediately that the leg was broken, even though they didn’t want to say anything to Liv. Not to worry her more than necessary,” Andreas said, smiling and stroking Linn’s arm.
Emelie saw the gesture and immediately something resembling jealousy started bubbling inside her. She cleared her throat and stretched her back.
“I hope it didn’t ruin your day at work. Having to leave like that, in a hurry”, she said sharply.
“No worries at all, I was almost done for the day and Martin closed up, so it was cool,” he said, smiling.
“I’ll give you money for petrol,” she said, chewing on a saffron cookie.
He looked at her in surprise.
“Are you joking? Of course not. It was fine, really. Of course, I’ll help out when I can,” he said, smiling with eyes that were glittering at her.
She felt like she was fourteen again, with uncontrollable feelings rushing all over her.
The jealous feelings then became replaced with guilt.
She should show gratitude towards this lovely man who had gone out of his way to help her.
Like a grown-up. This was the way it was supposed to be, two grown up people, helping each other.
But not her and Andreas, she understood that.
He was too young, and she was too old. She had too many children and he didn’t have any yet.
She got up from the table, looking over at the sofa.
Liv was still asleep. She turned towards the people around the table, laughing and chatting. She put a hand on Andreas’ shoulder.
“Thank you so much for today. You don’t know how much it means to me,” she said, and he took her hand and looked at her with his beautiful eyes.
She almost fainted right where she was standing.