Page 141 of Top Shelf

“She could choose to leave,” I say. “She could decide this was a beautiful lie for a while and still leave when the agreement ends.”

“Yes.” Ebba does not soften it.

My jaw tightens with an image of Heidi in Denver, sliding signed papers across a table. Heidi smiling carefully while she gives me back my name, my ring, the bed we stopped pretending to divide. Heidi choosing her clean exit, because I gave her a marriage with an end date and then acted surprised when she believed me.

“But she deserves the choice,” Ebba says. “So give her something real to choose.”

My hand tightens around the cup. “And if she does not want it?”

Ebba studies me for a long moment.

“Then you will survive it, Viktorliko.” I breathe out roughly at my childhood nickname. “But if you hide your heart and call it patience, you will lose her without ever knowing what she might have done with it.” She tips her chin toward Heidi. “That girl is sitting in Solvik’s kitchen wearing flowers from your nieces and looking at the lake as though she understands why farfar tied you to it. Do not insult her by deciding she cannot bear your truth.”

I close my eyes for a second, and when I open them again, Heidi is back in deep conversation with the children.

“I do not want to lose her,” I murmur.

Ebba nods. “Good. Then do not put paperwork in her hand when what you mean for her to hold is your heart.”

Before I can reply, she pushes her coffee cup into my hand, says, “Refill,” in Swedish, then she walks back to the table. I stand there with her cup in my hand, raw in places no one has touched, while my temporary wife smiles at me across my grandmother’s kitchen, and I love her so much I do not know where to put it.

The rest of the day moves around us in a blur. Johan arrives from the outer cottage with our bags and two bottles of wine. My mother shows Heidi the blue guest room, then apologizes three times because the wardrobe sticks, even though every person in this family knows it has stuck since 1998. Hugo attempts to take Heidi to the lake and is stopped only by the bribe of cinnamon buns. Alice asks whether Colorado has frogs and Vera wants Heidi to wear flowers at the ceremony.

Later, after dinner stretches long enough that the evening light turns gold across the terrace, after my father opens a bottle of aquavit and my mother starts telling Heidi stories about my first skating lessons, I find Heidi standing alone by the open kitchen window.

The house has quieted, but not gone silent. It never does. Someone moves upstairs, and a door bangs, and my mother laughs from the living room. Outside, the meadow shifts in the late light, green and gold and the vision of summer.

Heidi has both hands wrapped around a mug. Herbal tea now, because my mother has decided dehydration and fatigue can be solved by chamomile. I step behind her and slide my arms around her waist. She stills, then her body eases back into mine with a sigh.

I rest my chin on her shoulder. “You survived your first day.”

“Barely,” she murmurs, but there is a smile in her voice.

“They like you.”

“I know.” She looks out over the meadow, her fingers tightening slightly around the mug as her throat moves. “That’s the problem.”

My chest tugs at her words. I know enough about her family to understand her dynamic with them, even if she hasn’t handed me every detail. She has been given love with conditions, filtered through what looked acceptable from the outside. A life spent learning which parts of herself made her family tut their tongues and shake their heads.

I turn my face enough that my mouth brushes her skin. “You do not have to earn them, Heidi.”

She goes quiet, and I feel the moment she understands the depth of my words by the way she leans back another inch, trusting my arms to hold the weight she won’t name.

“Tomorrow will be worse,” I say, changing the subject and pressing a kiss below her earlobe. “Midsommar preparations.”

“Ah, yes.” She huffs a laugh. “Sweden’s casual flower-and-feelings festival.”

She places her mug down and turns in my arms, her hand trailing up my chest until the light catches the ring on her finger. The diamond from Denver. The one that has started to feel less like a contract and more like a place my eyes go when I need proof she’s still here. Still mine.

“So,” she begins. “This family ceremony… What am I walking into?”

I exhale through my nose. “Nothing official. We are already married.”

“Technically.”

I give her a look, and she grins. “Continue.”

“It is more of a blessing. A family tradition, not Swedish law. My grandparents did it at their anniversary, and Freja and Johan did it after their civil ceremony. My mother likes rituals.”