“I guess that is up to you now”, he said.
She shook her head.
“No, you inherited the cottage and 300 m2 of the land. Didn’t you know that?”
He slowly turned towards her, and the expression in his face made it clear that he had not been aware of that.
“Excuse me?”
“Astrid gave it to you. She said you had been like a grandchild to her, or something like that,” Emelie said and dug around in her bag in order to find the papers from the law firm.
She looked through the will until she found the passage regarding Andreas’ inheritance and shoved it towards him.
“Look, here it is. The reason why I asked, is that I reckoned that you might not want to stay here now that there’s a complete stranger living the big house”, she said.
He nodded and poured the coffee. Then he looked intensely at her.
“Are you planning on moving here?”
“Er, no I don’t think so. I have three kids at home, and they are in school and I have a job and you know, a whole life. I don’t know what to do with this…this…Christmas chaos.”
She had never seen so many Christmas things in one place before. Astrid had definitely been a hoarder, but she seemed to have only collected Christmas stuff. What kind of a person does that?
“But did she have…problems, or what?”
Emelie noticed that the handrail leading up to the first floor was decorated with a garland identical to the one on the ceiling.
“She certainly did not. Astrid was the most wonderful person”, he said harshly.
She laughed.
“Hard to believe when you see this. The lady seems to have been a bit… away with the fairies, had some elves on the top shelf, if you know what I mean. Do you get it? Elves!” she said, laughing even harder.
Andreas slammed his hand hard onto the worktop in the kitchen and Emelie immediately stopped laughing and stared at him in surprise.
“I don’t want you saying things like that about her!”
Emelie got up and held up her hands.
“Calm down, I didn’t mean anything by it. But don’t you think it’s a bit loopy? Is it like this everywhere? I need to take a look around.”
She walked up the stairs and the garland felt prickly in her hand when she touched the bannister. Andreas poured the coffee and sat down at the table. Ten minutes later, Emelie came back down, looking even more surprised than before. She stopped on the last step and looked at him.
“It’s everywhere. E v e r y w h e r e. I didn’t know that much Christmas stuff even existed. Has she robbed an IKEA?”
He looked back at her, but his blue eyes weren’t as open and glittering anymore.
“That’s the way she wanted it, okay?”
“Sure, sure, but you have to admit that it’s crazy!”
“I don’t have to do anything.”
She sat down at the table, took a sip from the cup with Christmas trees and frowned at the cold coffee. She was wondering what kind of relationship Andreas and the old lady had actually had? He seemed really territorial, as if Astrid had actually been his grandmother. Which obviously she was not. Or he might just be cross because he wasn’t the one to inherit this Christmas inferno.
“Are all bedrooms up on the first floor?” she asked.
He shook his head.
