“I feel a bit nauseous” Emilie said, and felt ashamed for lying to her children, but she didn’t want to stay any longer.
She couldn’t stay and be a part of this drama. Someone would have to be the grown-up in the situation, and apparently that was her. Andreas apparently wasn’t going to be, and Linn was far too young. Malin popped her head up.
“Are you not feeling well? I can bring the girls over to our place and drive them back in the morning if you need to rest?”
Liv and Linnea started to jump up and down.
“Yes, please mum, please say yes!”
Now she started to regret what she had said. She didn’t really want to leave the party and the light summer night behind, but she didn’t have any choice. She said thank you to Malin and told the girls to behave and then left the pier with determined, though rather wobbly, steps. Her feet were aching in the new sandals so she sat down on a rock to take them off. When she looked over to the pier, she saw Linn ask Andreas to dance and they both jumped out on the dance floor and started swinging toInget stoppar oss nu– naturally he danced swing like a God too, and it was her favourite swing song. She sighed. To hell with it. Linn looked beamingly beautiful and happy, and Emilie saw Oskar looking at her dancing with Andreas. To hell with Andreas and to hell with this Midsummer night that never ended and to hell with her mood forcing her to stumble home all by herself. A teardrop ran down her cheek as she walked home. Her children were having fun without her, Sara and her mother were far away and Ousman even further. No one even knew where. She gazed up towards the sky and saw a star blinking before disappearing again. Even the star was alone, she thought to herself.
Chapter 8
The kids were playing in the sand. The youngest were carrying water and clay in red buckets up to the older kids, who were building engineers and in charge of planning today’s sandcastle. Emelie looked over at Linnea, Liv and Tore, who were absorbed in a lively discussion regarding whether the sandcastle should have one tower in each corner or two together. And maybe a drawbridge in between? Good luck building a drawbridge in sand, Emilie though to herself and spread out her towel on the sun-warm cliffs surrounding the little bay. She laid down on the towel, which was adorned with a drawing of a jolly Santa. One thing that was great about Astrid’s Santa hoarding was that there were plenty of towels in all sizes, from small wash cloths up to large beach towels. They were all decorated with garlands, advent reefs and these bloody pigs. Emelie was really tired of pigs by now.
“Maybe I should become a vegetarian”, she had told Linn the other day when she was folding pig duvets.
Linn had laughed and said it was a good idea.
It felt great to lay in the sun. She had carefully applied factor 30 suntan lotion to herself, and fifty to the children, and now she was enjoying the warm breeze rolling in from the sea. The peace lasted for exactly six minutes. She knew that it was six minutes because she was listening to today’s episode ofSummerin Swedish radio P1. The host had just finished the initial phases, setting the scene and pulling the listener into the life story of the host. Six minutes.
“Mum, can we have some ice-cream?”
She looked up at Liv who was standing next to her. Her hair was hanging in sticky saltwater locks around her head and her swimsuit was covered in sand. Emelie nodded at dug around in her wallet for a couple of 20 SEK banknotes that she handed to her daughter.
“Thanks mum! Then we are going crab fishing. I love Sardinön, I want to stay here forever”, Liv said and ran over to her sister and their friend.
Emelie smiled, wondering if she was going to say the same thing in six months when the autumn storms were roaring. Or hold on a second, then they would be back in Växjö, and Sardinön would be nothing but a memory. But the house would still be there. The question was what to do with it?”
“Hello, mother.” Linn, of course! She was the only one of her daughters calling her that.
Emilie didn’t really like it, but since it had happened that people had mistaken her and Linn for sisters, she figured that’s why Linn liked to make it clear that they weren’t.
“Hello there love”, she said, handing her a red Christmas beach towel.
Linn unfolded it, inspecting the motif; a Santa driving a train full of Christmas gifts.
“The creativity knows no limits. Santas in trains. What might they think of next?” Linn said, trying to sound older than her 19 years.
“Just wait and see. I’m certain that there are plenty of Christmas things that we haven’t discovered yet,” Emelie said.
Linn put the beach towel on the ground and sat down on it. She pulled her summer dress over her head and straightened her bikini top. Then she shaded her face with one hand, looking at Emilie.
“Why do you have beach towels with Christmas motifs?”
“Why not? When one has everything else with Christmas motifs” Emilie responded.
“Sure, but…Did we ever have special Christmas towels?”
Emelie shook her head. No, they certainly did not.
“Since your father is a Muslim, we never celebrated traditional Christmas when you were little. But when the girls arrived we started celebrating properly with a Christmas tree and presents, but without the ham, of course,” Emelie said.
“But I got Christmas gifts before Liv and Linnea were born, I remember that clearly. That red bike with a basket, for example,” Linn said dreamily.
“Of course you got Christmas gifts, I just mean that we didn’t really celebrate in any large fashion at home. But no matter what, neither we nor grandma ever owned any Christmas towels,” Emelie said.
“No, it’s probably just hardcore Christmas freaks like Astrid who take it that far”, Linn said and laughed. Emilie shook her head, put her headphones back into her ears and laid down again. She didn’t turn on the radio show again, but she knew that just having the headphones in gave her some peace and quiet, and saved her from hearing the constant “mum, mum”, all the time.
