Page 138 of Top Shelf

I stand by the counter and watch too long, memorizing the moment while hoping like hell a memory is not all I will be left with. Hoping that maybe the sight of her being here will one day be entirely ordinary. Freja notices first because Freja always notices the things that annoy me most.

She glances over Heidi’s head, catches my eye, and smiles in a way I mistrust immediately. Then she turns back to whatever she is saying, letting Vera place a crushed blue flower against Heidi’s hair to test whether it suits her.

It does. Everything suits Heidi here, which is not what I expected. I knew my family would like her, that part was easy to know. My mother has liked Heidi since I sent her the photograph of us at the courthouse, and I think she fell in love with her when Heidi tried to speak Swedish to her in the driveway.

As for Freja, she likes anyone who can make me visibly suffer with affection, and Ebba likes women who stand properly in their own lives. Heidi does that even when she’s exhausted and overwhelmed, all while still smiling.

But I did not expect Solvik to like her.

This house is not polite. It doesn’t welcome everyone, and it creaks at strangers. It remembers people who have left, people who have died, people who still hang coats by the back door as if grief can be tricked by habit. It takes time with new things. But with Heidi, the sun poured straight through the windows and onto her face.

“Viktor.”

My father’s voice comes from behind me, and I turn.

He stands in the hall, a hand resting on the doorframe. He has changed out of his good shirt into a soft gray sweater, which means we are no longer welcoming guests and have moved into family business. Behind him, through the open door to the small office, I see my Uncle Lukas at the old desk and Anton near the window, with his arms folded. Clara, Anton’s girlfriend, sits in the chair beside him, phone in her lap, careful not to look like she’s listening too hard.

The feeling in my chest changes. I look back toward the kitchen to see Heidi is laughing now with a surprised chuckle, while Ebba says something that makes Astrid put a hand over her mouth.

Good. My wife is safe. Still, I do not like leaving the room.

My father sees that too. “We won’t be long.”

This is what families say before old disagreements rear their heads, but I follow him into the office anyway.

The room still smells like my grandfather. Wood polish and the faint tobacco he claimed he stopped using years before he actually did. His old chair sits empty behind the desk, and no one uses it. My Uncle Lukas sits to the side in a smaller chair that makes him look too large and yet too young for a man who’s been trying not to show grief since the funeral.

Anton straightens when he sees me, and I realize he looks more like his father than ever before. Same fair hair, same tight mouth, same restless hand moving once over the front of his shirt before he stills it.

“Viktor,” he says.

“Anton.”

Clara gives me a small smile. “Welcome home.”

“Thank you.”

My father closes the door, but not fully. In this house, closed doors mean someone is either sleeping, changing clothes, or saying things they are ashamed of. My father leaves it open by two inches.

Lukas clears his throat. “Lund called this morning.”

I nod at the mention of our family lawyer.

“He has the certified marriage documents now,” he continues. “The translations are being processed, and he thinks everything is in order for the estate condition.”

Condition. Such a clean word for the thing Farfar left behind like a knife. Marry by the deadline, and the house remains tied to me as steward under the terms he set. Fail to marry by the deadline, and the property shifts into the broader family, where Anton’s development plans become possible.

I glance at Anton, then back. “Good.”

He presses his mouth into a straight line. There are many things he could say, but he chooses the careful one. “I’m glad the paperwork is settled.”

“No, you’re not,” Freja says from the doorway.

Every man in the room turns. My sister leans there with a mug in her hand and Hugo’s wooden fox tucked under her arm. She should not be here—she knows this, but it has never stopped her once in her life.

Anton exhales. “Freja.”

“What?” She steps inside. “We’re all pretending very hard. It’s boring.”