Chapter 25 #2
But somewhere between bedtime stories, pizza nights, and early morning practices, I'd stopped treating this marriage like the temporary arrangement it was supposed to be.
The whole reason I'd uprooted my life was because Mikko needed someone until the hockey season ended, and I needed financial help to finish my clinical fellowship.
Except Christmas meant we were practically halfway there.
Halfway through the season.
Halfway through my fellowship.
Halfway to packing my things and going back to the life I'd had before him.
And, stupid me, I’d stopped counting down.
Watching Parkinson's steal another piece of Walt in a single week was a brutal reminder that time didn’t care whether you were ready for it to pass.
One day he was grumbling through crossword clues and rolling his eyes every time I made him practice smiling, and the next he could barely lift his hand off his lap.
Maybe that was the real danger of letting yourself get comfortable—you started believing there would always be another week. Another Christmas. Another morning to be with the people you loved.
Until there wasn't.
“I have one more surprise before we head up the mountain,” Mikko said once we were back inside the car.
Snow had fallen while we were inside, thick flakes drifting through the gray afternoon before melting against the windshield. Mikko brushed them away with the wipers as he backed out of the parking lot, there and gone like they’d never been.
Leena barely made it a few minutes before her chatter dissolved into silence from the backseat, telling me she was dozing like she so often did in the car.
I glanced out the window, watching as familiar streets gave way to a neighborhood I didn’t recognize.
“Where are we going?”
Mikko grinned, eyes on the road. “You’ll see.”
I tried to find it in me to share in his excitement, but all I could feel was that I was hurtling toward a cliff at a speed I couldn’t check.
Twenty minutes later, he turned into a quiet neighborhood tucked against the foothills.
Every roof was dusted white, Christmas lights glowing warmly beneath the steady snowfall.
At the end of the block, he turned into the driveway of a two-story home with a wide front porch that looked brand new, no lights hung on the roofline like the ones around it.
I looked from the house to him. “Whose house is this?”
He didn’t answer, turning the car off and climbing out. Leena woke right back up when he opened her car door, already reaching for him. When I didn’t follow, he opened my door too, grinning wider now.
“You’re acting weird.”
He took my hand, practically pulling me toward the front door. The lock clicked, and he pushed it open. The house was empty except for the echo of our footsteps. No furniture. Not even flooring. The walls were still in studs, but I could see what this would someday become.
“I bought it.”
My head whipped toward Mikko, surprised by his words.
“You what?”
“It’s mine,” he said, grinning wider. “I had a real estate agent looking for me earlier this summer before everything changed, trying to find a house that still had a mountain view and would fit Mom’s needs when she comes to visit.
But then everything with Leena happened, and it all got put on hold. ”
I looked at the house again, noticing the wider hallways on the first floor and what even looked like an elevator. The entryway opened into a spacious room with vaulted ceilings and wooden beams that looked perfect for a rustic mountain home.
“The kitchen will be over here.” Mikko led me farther into the space. “They’re building me a huge pantry, so I’ll have a lot more space than the penthouse. Drink fridge, deep freezer, the works. But what I’m really excited about is the backyard.”
We walked through the living room toward a glass wall I hadn’t realized were doors. Mikko grabbed the handles and pushed until the doors slid over each other. One by one, they slid into the wall making it so the living room and outdoor patio and yard beyond were one big space.
He turned in a circle, arms held wide. “Can’t you see Leena growing up here? Room to play and run and grow?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to answer.
Yes, I could see it.
I could see it perfectly.
Leena racing barefoot across the wide lawn in summer, her blonde hair flying.
Mikko chasing her with that rare, full laugh that still caught me off guard every time it appeared.
Snow days spent building forts against the fence while the mountains stood watch.
Birthday cakes on the big kitchen island.
Christmas mornings with the tree already lit before everyone woke up.
Quiet evenings on the patio with the doors open, the three of us—no, the two of them—watching the sky turn pink over the foothills.
I could see every single piece of it.
But I couldn’t see myself in any of it.
This house was the reminder I needed that this wasn’t my story. It was a fairytale I’d somehow stumbled into—the temporary arrangement that was never supposed to feel permanent.
Mikko had never once said the words that would make any of this mine. He’d never promised forever. We’d only promised until the season ended. Until my fellowship was finished. Until it was convenient to stop.
I knew how this ended, and yet it hurt worse than any single thing I’d ever felt in my life.
Good things didn’t stay.
People left.
They always left.
So I stood there in the empty house that already felt like a life I wasn’t allowed to want, and I said nothing at all.