Chapter 51-54

 

51. 

“Place me like a seal over your heart,
    like a seal on your arm.
                For love is as strong as death, its jealousy as enduring as the grave.
Love flashes like fire,
    the brightest kind of flame.
 Many waters cannot quench love,
    nor can rivers drown it.
If a man tried to buy love
    with all his wealth,
    his offer would be utterly scorned.”

Song of Solomon 8:6-7

She woke up before her phone’s alarm went off. Felt rested for the first time in a very long time. Got dressed and gathered up her grandmother’s diaries in her arms and carried them downstairs. Her mother wasn’t up yet but she would be in a little while. Kristin put on the coffee and set the table for breakfast.  Placed the diaries on the table next to her mother’s coffee cup and sat down to eat. Her mother came shortly after and smiled when she saw the set table.

“Thank you sweetheart,” she said and gave Kristin a kiss on the top of the head. She sat down across from Kristin and picked up the diaries.

“I read them,” Kristin said and pointed to the thin books. Her mother opened the one on the top and looked at the first page. “I think you should read them too.”

“I will,” her mother said and pushed them a little to the side so she could put a slice of bread on her plate.

“I think you should read them soon.”

Her mother lifted her head and looked quizzically at her.

“Ok, do you want to tell me why?”

Kristin looked at the books on the table, looked at her mother again and shook her head.

“No, I think it is better she tells you.”

Her mother narrowed her eyes and Kristin waited for her to try to pry something out of her. But then her mother shrugged and reached for the almond butter instead.

Kristin looked at her mother’s features during the whole breakfast, trying to see George. But all she could see was her mother and some of Grandpa Albert’s mannerisms.

After breakfast they took turns in the small bathroom and then it was time for good bye. Her mother held her for a long time.

“It was so good to have you here. Bring Anna and Jack soon.”

“I will.”

Kristin stepped out of the house and waved from the car. Even though it technically was rush hour nothing like that existed here and she only met a couple of cars on her way out of town. When she turned left and came to the bigger road her stomach tightened and she almost turned around again. Always equally hard to leave. Still more home than where she now lived.

If it wasn’t for Anna and Jack would I have left a long time ago? Had I moved home a long time ago? But what would I do here? Seriously could I really live here? Probably not, but I should come here more often. I should bring the kids here even if John doesn’t want to come.

Who says I have to do whatever John wants? I can do whatever I want. I should do what I need. But what do I need? Why is it so hard to know? Why isn’t anything simple?

Fuck, my father killed a man. But he deserved it! Deserved it! Deserved it! Poor little Emma! Sweet baby angel sister!

The thought of Emma, as small as Jack in the hands of Fritz made her nauseous and furious.

I have to write that book. I have to. So what if they sue me.

She started to laugh when an image formed in her head of the town’s people lining up outside her mother’s house. Angry and offended.

Dad wasn’t who I thought he was, he was better. In the end he was better. What am I saying? To kill made my father better?

She turned up the radio and sang along to Simon and Garfunkel.

 “Sail on Silver Girl, sail on by, your time has come to shine. All your dreams are on their way.”

Nature or nurture? I thought I was like my father but perhaps I am more like my mother. Or maybe I am like neither of them. Maybe I am like grandma. And perhaps I am like George. She wrote, he wrote, I write. Robert even said I was a good writer. So I will write a book. A book! I have plenty of stories to pick from.

After about two hours the landscape started to change. More stores, more traffic, more people. She started to long for Anna and Jack more and more the closer she got. When she left the car at the rental place she had to run to pre-school to pick up Jack.

“Mommy!” he screamed when he saw her and she picked him up and held him hard. Hard, hard, hard. I will never let go of you my child. Put her face close to his and whispered in his ear,

“I love you little munchkin.”

“I love you too mommy.”

You are three years old. Your small little body. Three years old, the same age as Emma.

She squeezed even harder. Smelled his hair, sniffed his neck, and caressed his cheek.

“Are you going to be home now mommy?”

“Yes, I am going to be home now.”

He started to wiggle so she let him down; he took her hand and started to drag her with him.

“We have to hurry home so you can see the watermelon plant, mommy.”

He skipped next to her the whole way home, the sun gleaming in his light brown hair. He talked non-stop about the weekend.

The watermelon plant was now not only two little leaves on the ground but had an actual shoot   sticking out.

“Look mommy! Look!” Jack pointed a proud little finger at the plant.

“Yeah, look at that.”

“Can we lay in your bed and read, mommy?”

“Yes, of course.”

Then he took off running around the yard, yelling all the while. “Mommy, you can’t get me. “Mommy, you can’t get me.”

She ran after him and scooped him up in her arms. He giggled as she carried him inside.

They spent two hours in the bed, reading, cuddling, snacking and in the end building tunnels with the blankets.

At two they left to get Anna. The day was a beautiful, mild May day. The sky was violet blue and the lilacs had started to bloom. The fragrance filled the air as they walked to school. Anna was equally happy and hugged her for a long time and held her hand as they walked home.

They spent the afternoon in the backyard and Kristin became filled with a calmness and serenity she hadn’t felt in a while.

For dinner she turned on the grill and put on some hot dogs and when John came home they sat outside on the stoop and ate. The evening sky grew pink as the sun set and it was hard to get the kids to come in. The beautiful spring day had filled them up with feverish urgency, but they both fell asleep almost immediately when they finally were in bed.

There was a certain tension between her and John as they sat down on the couch. He turned on the TV but instead of watching he flipped through the channels.

“So how was your mom?”

“She was really good.”

“How was Jonas?”

“He was good too.”

“Did you see Karen?”

“Yes I did.”

“How was she?”

“She was good too.”

She looked over at her husband and got filled with immense tenderness. He was the father of her children. And no matter what kind of pressure she had put on him, no matter if she had yelled, or screamed, or been cruel or hit or cried her guts out, he had never left her side.

She got up from the couch and went over to him.

“I’m going to sit in your lap.”

He opened his arms.

“Sure,” he said

She curled up in his lap, put her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder.

They might not be the same, they might not even have a lot in common. But they had ten years together. Ten years with joy and heartache, and two children they both loved and a life that might be slightly tedious in periods but it was a safe and comfortable life.

Some things are worth fighting for and I don’t have to be like my father or my mother. I can write my own history. I can break the chain of betrayal and loss.

Can you love two men at the same time? Yes, I am sure of that. My grandmother could.

But eventually the love she felt for Robert would fade, weaken in its luster, and lessen its pull on her, just like George had said. For now she just had to endure a broken heart.

“I love you,” she whispered into John’s ear.

“I love you too, little rabbit.”

They sat quietly for a while before she started to tell him all she had found out when she was home. About her father and Emma. About her grandmother, George and her grandfather. John asked questions when he didn’t understand and it felt good to tell him. When she was finished she could sense how John was thinking.

“So you have been scared of water for all this time and you have been angry at your father…” he stopped. “Ha and it was all for no real reason. Wow, this must be so strange for you. Your whole life was turned upside down over the weekend.”

She lifted her head from his chest and looked at him. The dark hair, the brown eyes, the softness in his face. So different from her father, the complete opposite. And she remembered why she had been drawn to him so strongly when they first met. He was always reliable. He was always responsible. Some might call him boring but to her he had been an oasis in her life. Someone who never would leave, someone to trust, someone different from what she had experienced as a child.

“I always liked Jimmy, I know you were angry with him, but I always liked him. And what will happen with George now? Will you tell the kids?”

Why and when did we stop talking to each other about anything else than bills and children and chores? Did it all disappear in the everyday life?

“My mom has to get in contact with him first before I do anything.”

John nodded approvingly.

She leaned back against his chest again and listened to him breathing.

“I will write a book.”

“A book?”

“Yes, about everything, about grandma and grandpa,” she smiled, “both of them.” And mom and dad and us. About Emma.”

“A book.” John’s voice was quiet. “Yeah, why not. You need something that is yours and only yours.” His voice was close to her ear, warm against her skin and sent shivers down her neck. She turned her face to the side and searched for his lips. Soft against hers, he tasted familiar and safe. But sometimes familiar and safe is exactly what you need.

“Let’s go to bed,” she said, stood up and took his hand.

Halfway up the stairs she turned around, leaned in and kissed him, put her hands in his hair. One of his hands found its way up her back, under the braid to the nape of her neck. The other one moved to her lower back so he could press her whole body into his. When they moved away from each other both of them were breathing heavily. She put her hand on the outside of his jeans; felt his arousal. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes for a moment then he grabbed hold of her and kissed her again. Kissed her lips, her cheeks, her neck, put his tongue in her ear. She started to pull on his shirt, threw it down the stairs and looked at him in the dim evening light. He was handsome, her husband. Always had been with his slender build and dark hair.

“Come,” she whispered and took him by the hand again.

They made love in the purple May night. The way they used to do. Slow, careful and tender.

 

                                                                        52.

But my guess is you will get rid of all that by writing about it, he said.

 Once you write it down it is all gone.”

 Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

Tuesday morning was as beautiful as Monday night. They had fallen asleep close together in the bed and slept curled up the whole night. When one of them moved away in their sleep, the other one moved along.  

Jenna showed up at her regular time and Kristin smiled when she saw her.

My life isn’t so bad!

The park was gorgeous this morning and the wind smelled sweet. Very close to a summer wind moved through the trees.

“How was it to go home?”

Jenna sniffled, she had horrible spring allergies.

“It was…” She had to stop for a moment and think about what to say. “Interesting.”

Jenna smiled and rubbed her nose.

“Interesting?”

They passed a mother who carried her crying baby in a sling. The baby was very small and the mother looked awfully stressed out. Her cheeks were red and she was dark under the eyes.

Jenna sighed deeply and looked after the mother as she rocked the baby.

“Oh thank god those days are over.”

“Probably first one,” Kristin said and Jenna nodded.

“So what happened at home that was so interesting?”

Kristin didn’t really know where to start.

“My mother and I talked about my father a lot.”

Jenna nodded again.

“She told me things about him that I didn’t know.”

“Like what?”

Kristin hesitated; the secret she had found out about her father wasn’t hers to share randomly. To tell Jonas and John was one thing, but to tell Jenna was completely different.

“Things that made me think in a different way about him.”

“A better way?”

Kristin nodded.

“That is good!”

They came to the hill and walked up.

“And I read…” she had to stop and take a few deep breaths. “I read my grandmother’s diaries. It was amazing to get to read about her since I never knew her.”

Jenna nodded.

“And I found out she cheated on my grandfather and that my mother isn’t actually my grandfather’s child.”

Jenna stopped short and stared at her with an open mouth.

“Wow!”

“Yeah I know. And then I went and talked to my biological grandfather. His name is George.”

She was hoping this would make Jenna forget about her father and talk about her grandparents instead. It worked marvelously. She spoke of George and the passionate love affair. Jenna swallowed every word and looked more and more amazed.

“It sounds like a movie or a book.”

They had walked around the whole park and left through the gate.

“Yes, I know.”

“But why didn’t your mother know? Where were the diaries?”

Kristin thought back to when grandpa died, tried to remember if she even saw the diaries then. Too long ago, her mind had been too filled with other things to pay attention.

“I’m not sure. I know that my mother didn’t even look in the boxes we took from grandpa. She hid them in the attic. Said the past was the past and she wanted to live in the present. But now I can see that the pain was probably too much for her at that time.”

They passed the house where a woman lived who bred dogs. Today the puppies were tumbling around on the grass. Brown and white, speckled. Kristin looked longingly after them as they walked away.

“I can’t even put my mind around all the sorrow and pain all of you must have felt that summer.”

Jenna put her hand on Kristin’s back, right in between the shoulder blades.

Kristin looked over at Jenna. They had met when at Mommy and Me when Anna was a baby. Now six years later Jenna was her best friend in many ways. They shared the everyday life, the fights with the kids and the husbands and the boredom.

“Thank you!”

Maybe it is time for me to let the past be the past. Maybe my place is right here. Right here in suburbia. But first I will write the book.

“I will write a book about my grandparents and my childhood.”

 “Oh yeah! That is so cool!” Then Jenna’s face changed from excitement to concern. “How do feel by the way?”

Kristin shrugged at first, then she shook her head, then she shrugged her shoulders again.

“I really don’t know. I mean, it still hurts a lot and I still miss him but I guess…” She stopped talking for a moment.

“Matters of the heart are like sine curves.”

Kristin laughed.

“I don’t think I follow.”

“When two people meet and have feelings for each other the feelings are like two sine curves. Sometimes they will touch and sometimes they are on the opposite ends of each other.”

Jenna gestured with her hands in the air, up and down. Minus and plus. Negative and positive.

“But when they touch, everything is right. I guess you and Robert are on opposite ends of the axis at the moment.”

When she came home she started to clean, methodically and carefully, as she did so her mind started to work. She gathered all she had found out, all she knew, all her memories and then she started to sort them inside her head. She was so absorbed in this that she was very close to forgetting to pick up Jack.

He bounced around like a rubber ball when they walked home. Another birthday celebration with cupcakes in school. He had chocolate frosting all over his face and hands. She didn’t even bother asking if he wanted lunch. She kept him outside for an hour playing knights and dragons. Then she made a plate with cut up fruit and cheese and they sat outside on the stoop and ate together. A lonely white seagull flew across the blue sky and without forewarning her stomach got tight and she missed Robert.

Everything passes, everything passes, everything passes.

Deep breath in, deep breath out. The calmness after her outburst by the lake wasn’t as penetrating anymore, the feelings were slowly creeping back.

“Ok Jack, time to get Anna.”

They ran to school together, Jack with his play sword in his hand telling her that she should be careful and watch out for dragons, trolls and evil wizards on the way.

After they had gotten home she helped Anna with homework and then they left for soccer practice. Arrived as usual a few minutes late and out of breath, then the same rush as usual on Tuesday. John brought home pizza, they played and put the kids to bed. As soon as the house was quiet she turned on the computer.

Her fingers rested on the keyboard, hesitated for a second before she started to write.

Just north of the lake was a town, a regular American town with a main street that ran south to north. If you started to walk at the beginning you would pass the diner, Eddie’s Ice cream, a hairdresser where old ladies got their hair done once a week. In the middle of the street you would have to stop and wait for the light to turn green and in the afternoon after school you would see kids coming walking down the side street from the brick building a few blocks away.

After the intersection was the bank and the barber, a jewelry store where 90% of the people married in town got their wedding rings and a tobacco store that also sold comic books. A lot of the boys from school would stand there in the afternoon and stare at the comic books and glance up to the top shelves to try to get a glimpse of the covers of Playboy and Hustler.

All the way at the north end, to the right was a small park. In the summer “The Scandinavian Club”   would raise a midsummer pole and in the winter a gigantic Christmas tree would be put up filled with glimmering lights. Behind the park were the three only apartment buildings in town. The people that lived in these buildings were considered slightly different from the rest who lived in the Cape Cods and the Colonials.

If you took the street to the left you would immediately pass a bakery, in the morning the street smelled of new baked bread, rolls, cakes and jam cookies. A few blocks further west a beautiful white wood church stood on a green lawn. Several old oaks and maples grew around the building. Every Sunday the church would fill up, everybody came to hear when Pastor Berger preached. He was a gentle, intelligent man with bright blue eyes, there was no one who didn’t love him and respect him.

But what he didn’t know was that sometimes, some of the church going women would whisper a few words to each other about what happened thirty years ago. A few whispers about the pastor’s wife and the hot summer when the pastor spent some time in the hospital. And they whispered about the beautiful daughter with a mane of copper red curls. The wild redhead whose mother died a long time ago. The wild redhead with the handsome, charming and completely untrustworthy husband.  The wild redhead with three poor children. The skinny, tough eleven year daughter who fought with boys and talked like a sailor. The sensitive boy who huddled behind his eyes or his mother’s skirts. And the angel, the blonde three year old angel who looked at the world with big blue eyes.

 

 

                                                                            53.

“One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing
Then you'll spread your wings
And you'll take to the sky”

 Summertime, George Gershwin

Letter from day 60

Strange I haven’t thought about you for a while, or perhaps I am lying a little, but at least I haven’t thought of you as much as I used to. But yesterday the thermometer on the kitchen window showed 90 degrees for the first time this summer, and it is sticky and humid, and it made me think of you.

Made me wonder how you are doing in your City apartment, you who hate hot weather with the same passion as I do. Anyway this will be the last time I write to you. But I had to write this to say thank you, so here I go.

Thank you for doing what you did, disappear, pull the plug, pretend I don’t exist because no matter how wonderful I thought you were the whole situation we (yes we) created was clearly unhealthy for me. But I was too infatuated with you to see it.

Thank you for pushing me to change and take a good look at my life and the choices I have made and even more important the choices I can make.

Thank you for teaching me the great lesson that if my gut tells me something is wrong then I am right.

Thank you for making me see that even though my life is dull sometimes it is also very comfortable. And I actually deserve some comfort for the first time in my life.

And thank you for making me feel beautiful again, because even though you hurt me, you made me feel very special and desirable for a while.

Don’t we all struggle to not be like our parents, or at least we try to not duplicate the things they did that we despise or the things that hurt us. I know I do, I try hard, sometimes so hard I get exhausted doing it. But you left, just like your and my father did, with no explanation and no concern for how it could affect anyone.  You told me you purely live in the present, of course it is true, but if you never go back and look upon what happened then you can never learn and never understand what we are made off. How each thing that happened to us are building blocks and has made us who we are, with all our strengths and fears, and hopes and dreams and longings.

P.s. Just one inside tip; next time you have a beautiful, younger woman visiting you for the day, don’t make plans with “someone” the same day. It is not only tactless but also dumb.

I hope you are doing well.

She hesitated and then she wrote.

And miss me like hell when you hang out with other women, who never will understand how it feels to run barefoot or to be poor and lonesome. And when they talk about the gym, and their careers and how wonderful the summer is, then think of me and remember how we used to talk and how we used to understand each other.

But then she erased it again.

She printed it out and put it next to the other two letters in the draw. Then she went downstairs and started to make sandwiches. They were going to the beach today for the first time. Jack didn’t remember the beach from last year but Anna had made him so excited by telling him about the sand and the ocean and the ice cream truck that he refused to fall asleep last night.

Her body smelled of John, last night after Jack finally had gone to sleep they had made love. Wonderful, exciting love, perhaps the best she ever had.

The water wasn’t too rough today, thank goodness, then she would dare to go in, the fear for the water was still there. Had been with her for long enough to be hard to vanquish even with the strength of truth. Anna and Jack dug in the sand and build a big castle with a moat.

“I will just take a walk,” she said and started to walk down the beach. She saw the surfers and of course that brought Robert to her mind again.

I would have loved to let him teach me to not be afraid of the water. If I could hold on to him I can’t imagine that I would have been afraid.

She pictured herself and Robert sitting on a surfboard, him telling her to trust him and not be afraid.

And here comes the fucking longing again.

She pulled her eyes from the surfers, focused on the sand under her feet, looked at the common tern swooping by. Fast, swift and graceful. Watched the American Oystercatcher run in the waterline, their beaks bright red. Something was lying further up in the rocks, almost by the jetty. She focused her eyes.

That looks a lot like a shark!

She had to run up and look, it was a three foot long sand shark. She touched it carefully, completely lifeless. Tried to pick it up, much heavier than she thought.

I have to show the kids! I have to!

She walked back fast, found the kids in the sand. She crouched down to their eye level.

“Do you want to see a shark?” she whispered and watched how their eyes lit up.

“Is it big?” Anna asked.

“No, it is only a small one. It is lying over there by the rocks. I hope the tide hasn’t swept it away yet. We better hurry up!”

She took Jack by the hand and Anna ran first. People looked at them as they came running down the beach.

The shark still lay exactly where it was before. They sat down on the sand.

“Can I touch it?” Jack asked.

“Of course, just watch out for the fishing hook.”

Jack reached out a hand a poked the sharks head, then he opened the mouth and put his hand in.

“No teeth,” he said and showed them.

“The tongue is white,” Anna said and pointed.

“Yeah look at that. And here are the fins,” Kristin said and pointed.

The shark’s skin was rubbery under her fingers. She lifted her head and looked around, saw plenty of children and parents, but they were the only ones down by the shark.

Why aren’t they curious? Why aren’t they interested? Robert would…

Then she stopped herself and shook her head.

Out of my head! Out!

“Ok, who wants ice cream?”

“I do!” Jack jumped up.

“Me too!” Anna said and started to run, “I will get there first.”

Jack ran after her and Kristin followed.

 

                                                                                54.

“You don’t run onto something like that.

Such things don’t happen.

Maybe it never did happen, he thought.

Maybe you dreamed it or made it up and it never happened”

 

Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

 

The romantic and sentimental end

 

An unusual cold December Saturday; the snow had been coming down heavy the day before and now everything was covered in a beautiful white, clean blanket. Kristin had fished out her mother’s old sheep skin coat from the 70’s and her thickest gloves. She pulled the scarf over her face and out of habit she tried to tuck the braid underneath.

To cut her hair had been liberating. The hair dresser had asked her four times if she was sure.

“To your shoulders?” she had asked Kristin. But Kristin had only shaken her head.

“No, I don’t want to be able to have a pony tail or make a braid.”

She had walked out with a short bob and a feeling of freedom.

Now it was twilight in the City and the Christmas’ lights were bouncing of the still fresh snow. She was about to go into a store when she saw him. At first she wasn’t sure; it had been over six months since she saw him but when he turned to his side and she saw his distinctive nose she was certain. She could tell that he didn’t see her and she simply stood perfectly still taking in his presence. The broad shoulders, the slightly long hair and dark eyebrows. He was dressed in a dark blue sailor’s coat, jeans and dark boots. Handsome as usual.

To her own surprise she realized that she missed him. Not the way you miss a lover. No, the same way you miss your brother or your best friend. A strange deep longing situated somewhere in her stomach.

Who doesn’t want to fall madly in love, who doesn’t want to believe in a magical, extraordinary  meeting, who doesn’t want to meet a soul mate, the one, someone you have been waiting for your whole life? Who doesn’t?  Perhaps he had wanted her to be as true as she had wanted him to be. They were both passionate romantics with soft hearts under the hard shell of protection. She had probably hurt him as much as he had hurt her.

She had desperately wanted the strong connection and belonging he had given her, but he had been frightening, she had no control over him.  In her world she had always tried to be in control because her life had never been calm enough for her to relax.  Until the last few years and then the calmness had made her bored and on edge. What was she supposed to do with all her capacity when she didn’t have to use it to stay safe anymore or struggle for something?

Instead of telling him this she had taken all her fear and all her demons and shoved them right down his throat. And now she finally understood why she had frightened him so.  What would have happened if he basically proposed to her? What would she have done? Would she actually have been willing to leave her marriage behind for him?

 She smiled to herself.

 He must have been so scared. He probably thought I would stand on his doorstep one day with the kids in tow.

 She looked down at the snow by her feet for a short moment and when she lifted her head he was gone, disappeared into the crowd.

“I scared him away”, she said quietly to herself. Then she started to walk towards the station.

If she hadn’t been so scared. If he had been more understanding. If things would have been different. If they had met at another time in their lives.  Then she was quite sure, she would have been walking by his side now and not standing here alone. Because in her mind there was no question they would have been good together.

 

The realistic end

Kristin stamped her feet on the ground; the cold had made its way into her feet even though she wore thick wool socks under her boots. One more store, then she would give up. Anna had asked for a bow and arrow set for Christmas and she had been in every store in the City without finding one that she liked. This would be the last one, after this one she would go home. She grabbed the handle on the door of the store when she froze.

A broad shouldered man with a dark coat, jeans and boots was standing a few stores away. She tilted her head to the side and looked more intently.

Robert!

She could tell that he didn’t see her and she simply stood perfectly still taking in his presence. Handsome as usual.

To her surprise she didn’t even feel like she wanted to go up and say hello. He felt so distant now, a dream, another life. Like it never happened!

Did I really feel so strongly for him?

She tried to recall those fleeting spring weeks when her world had been a buzzing bee hive. Yes, she could of course still picture his apartment perfectly. She still knew exactly where he kept his things; the rice cooker, the whiskey and his weights. If she closed her eyes she knew how his sheets felt, the wood floor under her naked feet and how the light filtered through the curtains. But him? What did he look like naked? Did he have any scars? How did his skin feel under her fingers? What did he smell like? She wasn’t sure anymore.

It had been so short, so brief. A dream she had had one morning right before she woke up. Wonderful but unreal.

He is just another battle scar on my heart. I have plenty and each one of them have made me better, stronger and wiser. He taught me so much in such a short time. He made my life turn upside down and inside out. And that was a good thing. Horribly painful at the time but good in the end.

She shrugged, smiled and went into the store, the little bell jingled and the warm air smelled like cinnamon.  

I have to order it online if I can’t find it.

But there next to the counter; the perfect bow. And with beautifully crafted arrows, even with natural feathers. She picked up the bow, tried the string, felt the spring in the wood. Exactly what she was looking for!

 

The “I am so damn cool” end

She was late, rushing down the street, her hair bounced against her collar. The City looked magical tonight, the white snow, the Christmas lights and everyone dressed in heavy winter clothes.  Since she had finished her book things had gone extremely fast. Miraculously the first agent she contacted had loved the book and somehow the publisher had also loved it and boom, she was published.  Now she was on her way to a book signing.

She had worked beyond hard to write the book. Up at four in the morning, didn’t see any friends for a month, when she was done she had slept ten hours every night for a week. After her mother and George had found each other, she had sent the book to him and he had praised her in a very grandfatherly way.

To be published had been thrilling and rewarding and had made her happier than she ever had been in her life. When she got the first published copies she had picked up the book, hugged it, slept with it in her bed and carried it around for days with a huge smile on her face.

She skidded around a corner and bumped into someone.

“Robert?” She said surprised.

“Kristin?” He looked equally surprised.

They stood still for a moment looking at each other.

“You cut you hair.”

She smiled.

“Yeah I did. How have you been?”

He wore a dark blue sailor’s coat, no gloves and he was handsome as usual. He narrowed his eyes when he looked at her and she just had to smile.

“I’m good,” he said, “I finished my book and it was well received.”

“Oh, that is good!”

“And how are you?” he asked.

“I am very good actually. I took your advice and wrote a book and I’m on my way to a book signing actually.”

He looked astonished.

“Wow! That is good news!”

“Yeah! I’m thrilled.”

“What is it about?”

She smiled even bigger now.

“You’ll just have to buy it I guess.”

He laughed at her, and then they stood and looked at each other for a while, his eyes narrow and she with a smile on her lips.

“Well I’m in a rush actually,” she said and put her hand on his upper arm, gave it a squeeze, “but Merry Christmas.”

“Oh, Merry Christmas to you.”

She started to walk down the street, when she came to the corner she turned around and looked back. He still stood there looking after her. A dark shape against the illuminated snow, familiar and distant at the same time. The same feeling as when she saw her father again after ten years, he was still her father but different and they would never be able to bring back what once was between them.