Chapter 26
The lights were out in the small classroom and there were tealights in the windows and on the tables, illuminating the room with a warm, flickering light.
There was a cosy buzzing from parents greeting each other and trying to keep younger children in line, but when the schoolteacher, Maria popped her head in, asking for silence, everyone listened and moments later a faint Lucia song could be heard in the distance.
The door opened and when the four Lucia brides in different sizes came walking in Emelie felt herself tearing up.
When Liv read her poem with a loud and clear voice and supported on her crutches, she couldn’t keep her tears back anymore.
Malin leaned towards her and discreetly handed her a tissue.
“She looks beautiful,” she said.
Emelie just nodded, she was so proud of her girls.
After the Lucia procession, it was time for coffee and cake and Emelie and Maria agreed that the children would come over to the community centre to rehearse in a couple of hours.
She excused herself, explaining she had lots to do before the Christmas market and all the parents promised to show up the following day.
As she grabbed her jacket from the hanger in the corridor, she heard the phone in the pocket beeping.
She picked it up and saw that she had two missed calls and three text messages from Linn.
“Pick up, there’s been a disaster.”
Emelie felt a cold lump in her chest, and her first thought was miscarriage.
It was the only disaster she could think of, and she took a deep breath.
It was still so early in the pregnancy so it wouldn’t be any danger for Linn.
What if Oskar’s parents could help her get to the hospital in town?
She was ashamed to admit it, but part of her was slightly relieved.
In this way they would be able to wait and not have to become parents so desperately early.
The phone rang and she put on her jacket while leaving the school and answered in a soft voice.
“Linn love, how are you, where are you?”
“Where are YOU?”
Emelie jumped. That wasn’t the voice of someone in pain, rather of someone quite furious.
“I’ve been to Liv and Linnea’s Lucia celebration, and I didn’t bring the phone inside.”
“Oh” Linn said, in a slightly milder voice. “But mum, there’s been a disaster.”
The cold lump returned when Emelie heard the panic in Linn’s voice.
“Our oven is broken!”
A moment passed before Emelie realised what Linn was saying and a smile spread across her face.
“Oh, nothing worse.”
“Nothing worse!”
Linn was almost screaming.
“It’s the day before the market, how could it possibly be any worse! How the hell am I going to solve this? There won’t be a café at the market!”
“No, you’re right, but I thought…And calm down, for heaven’s sake!”
Linn started sobbing.
“What are we going to do? Two full oven plates of Lucia rolls are already destroyed and today was the day when I was supposed to bake everything that we are serving fresh tomorrow.”
Emelie was almost all the way to the community centre and the parking lot outside was filled with vans, pickup trucks and a bunch of mopeds with loading platforms. In the middle of the yard, she saw Christer directing the traffic.
“But Linn, try to calm down. You’ve been able to borrow Andreas’ oven before, don’t you think you can be there today and take care of the last preparations when he’s at work?”
It got completely quiet, and then there was a couple of sniffles before Linn spoke again.
“Oh, mum, why didn’t I think of that? Of course, I’ll call him right away. Sometimes I think I’m completely stupid. Could it be the pregnancy hormones, do you think? Kisses, you’re the best!”
Emelie laughed after she had hung up. Sometimes her big girl still needed her mum. She waved to Christer who happily returned her greeting.
“Hello, so nice that you are here, do you want to take a round with your list and check the tables and the placements one last time before we let in the salesmen in?”
“Okay, I’ll go on in and then you can come when you are done with the cars.”
Emelie put her jacket in the cloakroom, grabbed her iPad from the bag and opened her file.
They had twenty tables all together, ten in the great hall and another ten in the yard outside.
She peeked into the hall. The tables were neatly placed along the walls of the room and in the middle of the floor there were smaller tables and chairs where hungry marketgoers could sit and have their coffee, cordial and some of Linn’s delicious cookies.
There were garlands of pine decorated with Christmas ornaments on the ceiling.
Andreas was standing on a ladder by the door securing the last of the garlands.
He waved at her and gestured to her to stay put until he had come down from the ladder.
She gave him a puzzled look as he came walking towards her, putting his arm around her and giving her a kiss.
She looked around, feeling slightly embarrassed; what if someone saw them?
Andreas smiled and pointed towards the ceiling.
“Mistletoe, surely then one has to be allowed to give the most beautiful woman on the island a kiss?”
Emelie didn’t have the time to answer before Christer came into the room and Andreas pulled her into the great hall so quickly that she almost tripped.
“What the…”
“I just wanted to save you from Christer in case he got into the Christmas spirit and wanted to kiss you too,” Andreas laughed. “Now I have to continue bringing in the amaryllis and the hyacinths.”
He left Emelie with blushing cheeks and Christer gave her an insinuating look and smiled, but she wasn’t going to give him any explanations.
“All right, Christer, let’s take one last round.”
In the great hall, there was a salesman arranging ceramic Santas, Oskar’s father who was going to be selling and nuts, a couple of salesmen making Christmas hay goats, a man from the mainland selling sausage and all the tables where clearly marked with their number and standing in the correct place.
“Here’s number nine,” Christer said.
Emelie looked down on her iPad.
“Number nine, that’s spices, Carina…”
She bit her tongue, that was Christer’s ex-wife. She hadn’t told him that she was going to show up for the market and she didn’t want to ruin his good mood.
“Yes, she doesn’t arrive until tomorrow,” she continued.
Emelie couldn’t interpret Christer’s facial expression.
“Spices, my wife and I used to sell spices, it was very popular until…”
He sighed deeply and he sounded even sadder than it usually did.
“I hate Scanians, I really do,” he said, staring down into the floor.
Emelie gave his arm a light stroke and suggested that they go outside and check the tables out there too. The had started walking towards the door when she saw a man who came rushing towards them.
“How the hell did you plan this?”
The man was quite big and wearing a leather west over his checkered shirt and it was dangerously tight over his big belly. His big beard jumped up over his angrily grinding jaws and Emelie nervously took a step back not to get hit by his saliva.
“Hello! How can I help you?”
“Help me! Ha! I’m selling sausages and other delicacies such as burnt almonds and now you have put some idiot selling nuts and chocolate on one side of me and a whole bloody café on the other side!”
Emelie’s heart was beating, and she tried to find Christer, but he was nowhere to be found. She looked down at her iPad. They had been so thorough with their placement of the different salespeople; had they actually made a mistake and placed this man next to someone selling the same thing as him?
“Just a second, let me double check.”
“Check!? You’ll just have to solve this, throw them out. I have travelled all the way from Sundsvall for this!”
Her hand was shaking as she looked through the applications that she had sorted into different files. Suddenly Linn came into the room, beaming with joy and with a plastic tray with fragrant content in her arms.
“Hello, everything worked out exactly as you said, I got to borrow Andreas’ oven and here’s a batch of freshly baked Lucia buns!”
Emelie looked at the angry salesman - he looked like someone who had a sweet tooth.
“Bengt, this is Linn who has the café next to your stand, won’t you help her try some of her homemade Lucia buns while I work this one out?”
She had guessed correctly, Bengt’s face lit up when he saw the golden Lucia buns and him and Linn were soon involved in a lively discussion about saffron and butter by one of the little café tables.
Emelie checked the applications and saw that Bengt had written that he was going to sell sausage – and nothing else – that explained it.
She walked over to Bengt and Linn but before she had the time to say anything, Bengt put a hand on her arm.
“Hey, I’m sorry for making a fuss, it will be just fine being next to this nice café tomorrow,” he said, and she saw that he had a thin line of powdered sugar in his moustache.
“How nice” Emelie said. “I’ll just move the chocolate salesman out into the yard and put someone selling knitted Santas inside instead, in that way we’ll have snacks both on the outside and in here, what do you reckon?”
Bengt seemed very happy about the solution and Emelie sighted with relief, voicing a thank you to Linn.
“Mum, I’m finished here, do you want to walk home with me?”
Emelie looked around, and, as there was nothing else she could do now, she nodded.
“I’d love to.”
They walked arm in arm on the way home, giggling when they though about Bengt who had gone from an angry wolf to a timid lamb with the help of some Lucia buns and a vanilla heart.
Linn kept talking about how wonderful it was that Andreas had let her borrow her house and oven and how cosy It was over at his place.
It was just the kind of place her and Oskar would want to live in one day.
Emelie listened with one ear while considering if this was right time to tell Linn about her and Andreas.
It was crucial to her that her girls approved of her meeting someone new, and it felt natural to start by telling Linn. Perhaps now was the right time.
“Are you listening?”
She looked sleepily at Linn.
“Sorry, I was distracted.
“By what, I might ask?” Linn said, and it sounded like she was insinuating something.
It was the right time. Emelie told Linn about her and Andreas and their new but growing feelings for each other. It was amazing to get to talk to someone about the person she was falling in love with, but also strange that that person was her own daughter. Linn squeezed her arm and laughed.
“Ha, I knew it! You are perfect for each other, just go for it, mummy,” she said, grinning.