Page 53 of Top Shelf

I look at Heidi with her hand on the open car door and the ring catching the sun as she tucks her hair behind her ear. “We will discuss it.”

“There is nothing to discuss. You had your American paperwork wedding. We will have a proper family celebration here, with people who love you and would have liked to know they were gaining a daughter.”

“Mamma.”

“Your grandmother says she refuses to die before meeting your wife.”

Ebba shouts something in the background.

My mother sighs. “She says I said that wrong, but the meaning stands. Bring Heidi home.”

The call ends, and I lower my phone as I slide into the driver’s seat, finding Heidi watching me.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes.”

I put the phone in the console. She has had one wedding today, so she doesn’t need to know my family is already planning another on a different continent.

She raises a brow. “They sounded… excited?”

“Yes. My family is expressive.”

“You personally did not get that gene.”

“No.”

She laughs, and the diamond on her finger catches the light as she twists to tug her seatbelt around her.

***

Three days after the courthouse, I unlock the door to our temporary apartment, and Heidi walks in carrying a cardboard box against her hip.

Everything has moved stupidly fast since we signed the contract. The money cleared into her account the morning after the courthouse, and Heidi had her studio lease signed before the end of the day. Yesterday, the rental company handed me these keys—and today, we live together.

The apartment we have rented is close to downtown, with a gym downstairs, underground parking, and a coffee shop across the street. It is twelve minutes from Moreno Clinic in morning traffic—I tested this myself to make sure it would be suitable for Heidi before I confirmed it.

Neither of us has given up our own place. This apartment is furnished, the marriage has an end date set for September 30th, and there is no reason to move everything we own across Denver for six months. Which explains the two suitcases waiting beside the door, but it does not explain Heidi’s single box.

She stops halfway into the living room. The furnished place is better than the photos, with pale floors and high windows. Neutral furniture which is contrasted by Heidi’s bright floral dress, and enough space that neither of us should feel trapped if we are careful.

“Oh,” she says, glancing around. “This is nice. Like, suspiciously nice.”

“It is a normal apartment.”

She gives me a look. “For rich hockey players.”

“Mm.”

“That’s what I thought.” She turns and sets her box on the kitchen counter beside the welcome folder from the rental company.

“That is all?” I nod toward the box.

She glances at it, then shrugs. “Yup, pretty much.”

I wait for more, but she does not give it, and the absence of explanation is clear enough that I leave the question alone. I have four boxes being delivered tomorrow from my condo. Books and some photographs. A framed print Freja gave me when I moved to Denver, along with a crooked ceramic bowl my nephew Hugo made that looks nothing like a bowl.

Things accumulate in my family. They acquire stories, then become impossible to throw away.