by Kim Golden
When Jesper finished his story, Mads tapped his own nose. “Do you see these ridges?” He hoped he’d phrased it properly in Swedish.
Jesper nodded slowly.
“They’re my battle scars in the name of love.” he told him. “I got suspended from school because of it but I know I did the right thing.”
“I’m suspended too.” Jesper admitted. He ducked his head sheepishly.
“How long?” Mads asked.
“Five days.”
“If your dad says it’s okay, you can stay here during those five days, but you have to come to the workshop with me.”
“Okay.”
“We’re going to finish two projects, you and I. Bedroom furniture.”
“I don’t know how to do anything like that though.”
“I’ll show you,” Mads assured him. He nudged the plate of sandwiches closer to Jesper. “You call your dad and make sure it’s okay.”
“Okay, I will.”
Laney looked both relieved and pleased. She mouthed a “thank you” at Mads, then she focused on Jesper again. “You know you will always be special to me, Jeppe.”
“You too, Laney. It’s just not the same without you.”
“I know, sweetie.” She pushed herself to her feet. “But there will always be a place for you…no matter what. There’s always a place for you here.”
Jesper flicked a cautious look at Mads. Mads nodded. “You can always come to us.”
14
BOY AFRAID (CONT'D)
“How long do you think he’ll stay?” Mads asked once Laney slid the pocket door closed. He was in bed already, waiting for her to join him and wanting nothing more than to wrap his arms around her and kiss her. She untied her wrap sweater and peeled it off. It was part of her evening routine. She always changed into a pair of yoga pants and a slouchy t-shirt when she came home from work and, because she was always cold no matter how high the heat was set, she cuddled into her favorite sweater.
“I don’t know,” she said as she draped the sweater over the chair where she always put her clothes. “We can talk to him about it tomorrow.” She was speaking Danish now, carefully trying to put the right words together and it made Mads smile. His ex-wife had never cared about learning Danish, had called it an ugly language. She’d hated everything about Denmark.
“I don’t mind that Jesper is here.” Mads pulled back the covers on Laney’s side of the bed. She picked her way slowly over to the bed, one hand on the mound of her belly as the other grazed the mattress. “I just don’t want any trouble with Niklas about this.”
“I don’t think there will be.” Laney sat on the edge of the bed and then eased back. “My back is really sore today.”
“Come here…”
She scooted closer to him and lay on her side. Mads lifted the edge of her shirt and began rubbing gentle circles on her skin. From the guest room, they could hear Jesper settling in. At one point, he called out Laney’s name and asked if it was okay if he watched TV. She told him it was as long as the volume wasn’t too high.
“So this is what we have to look forward to?” Mads joked. He could just imagine a teenage Liv, rolling her eyes at her parents being so silly, so old-fashioned and wishing they were a little cooler.
“Pretty much,” Laney laughed. “At least we have a few years when she’ll adore us.”
They were just falling asleep, Mads pushing thoughts of his father out of his mind and Laney breathing heavily and sighing when Laney’s phone rang. She groaned as she answered it.
Mads lay close to her, stroking Laney’s hair as she tried to get a word in. It was Niklas. He was sure of it. Probably furious they hadn’t sent Jesper home.
“I told him he could stay,” Laney finally said. “You weren’t home, he wanted to be somewhere where he could feel home and he came here.”
“Tell him it’s okay…” Mads murmured. He massaged Laney’s shoulder. She was tensing. She always did when Niklas called.
“I did…” she said quietly. Then to Niklas: “If you want him to come home, then you should call him and speak to him tomorrow…Tomorrow, Niklas. It’s too late to put him on a flight now.”
When she finally hung up, she turned and curled into Mads. He brushed her hair from her face and kissed her. He didn’t want her to go to sleep angry, even if it was Niklas’s fault. “We’ll be okay,” he whispered to her in the darkness. “Everything will sort itself out.”
* * *
Jesper was still sleeping when Mads entered the guest room. It was eight in the morning and he was ready to go to the workshop. He shook Jesper by the shoulder. “Time to go…” he said gruffly. “Up and at ‘em.”
Jesper mumbled and tried to turn over, but Mads caught his shoulder again. “We’re leaving in twenty minutes. Get up.”
“I thought I could sleep in…”
“Nope, we’re going to the workshop today,” Mads reminded him. “And you’re going to help me finish two projects. And you’re going to call your dad.”
Mads turned on the bedside lamp, then he flicked on the ceiling light. Jesper groaned, “C’mon…”
“A deal’s a deal. Get up and be ready in twenty minutes.”
Mads waited in the kitchen while Jesper reluctantly readied himself for a day at the workshop. Laney had already gone to work. Before she left, she’d asked Mads to be gentle with Jeppe. “He’s a nice kid,” she said as she pulled on her cashmere gloves. “He just needs a little more guidance than he gets at home.”
When Jesper finally emerged from the guest room, Mads nodded at him and said, “Let’s go. We’ll get your breakfast on the way.”
Before the boy could protest, Mads handed him his coat and scarf. He grinned at the boy’s muttered protests, but didn’t answer or give in. By 8:50, they were on their way to the workshop.
* * *
He was a fast learner. Once Mads showed him the right way to sand the wood, Jesper took over. He asked questions when he didn’t understand. Mads had given up trying to speak Danish with him. The teenager didn’t understand and stared at him blankly. They resorted instead to English or Swedish or a mix of the two. His workshop mates joked about his intern and Mads shrugged and said, “Yeah, but I’ve got help and you’re on your own.”
At noon, they took a lunch break. Mads and Jesper walked to the café where he’d first seen Laney. Jesper veered for the window seat, just as Mads always did. When they had their cups of coffee and sandwiches, Mads asked him if he was ready to call his father.
Jesper shook his head. “He’s just going to yell.”
“He already yelled at Laney,” Mads countered. He didn’t raise his voice. “She doesn’t need the added stress. She’s already got enough going on at work and she’s pregnant.”
“He called?”
“Last night.” Mads took a sip of his coffee. “You need to explain what happened. He was pretty upset you came to us.”
“He just…I don’t think he notices anything that happens to me,” Jesper muttered. He ducked his head and his dark curls blurred his eyes. “Sometimes I think he forgets I am around. Laney never did that. Even when she was upset with me, she always looked out for me.”
“She loves you, she always will.”
“I thought she left my dad because of me…and Siri, my sister. Laney probably told you about her.”
Mads nodded. “I heard about her. Met her once…by accident.”
“She’s not so nice…Siri, I mean. She’s kind of a bitch.”
“You shouldn’t say that though…”
Jesper shrugged. “It’s true. She doesn’t care about anyone else. I don’t think she likes me very much either.”
For a while, neither spoke. They stared out the window and watched a stream of cars go by. Jesper was the first to break the silence. “Do you have a good relationship with your dad?”
“No. He’s got…problems.” Mads rubbed his mouth. ” My dad’s an alcoholic. He left me and my mother when I was a kid.”
“Her father wasn’t an addict though.” Mads said.
“No, but he left her.” Jesper furrowed his eyebrows. “My dad…he never left, but he’s never really there.”
“You should talk to him. Tell him how you feel.”
“I don’t think it’ll matter,” Jesper said despondently. “He’s good at fixing other people’s problems. Not his own.”
“But you still have a father.” Mads reminded him. “And he was worried enough about you to call last night. You have someone who cares about you. He might be shit at showing it to you, but he cares enough to look for you, to worry. I never had that. Laney never had that either.”
Mads pushed his phone towards Jepser. “Call him.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I buy a ticket and send you home tonight.”
Jesper grinned at Mads. “You would, wouldn’t you?”
Mads nodded. “I would. I’d want someone to do the same for my kid.”
15
HOME
It wasn’t such a bad thing, having Jesper around. He was good with his hands and seemed to understand without over-thinking or doubting himself the right way to finish the projects Mads assigned to him. In the evenings, the two of them walked back to the apartment and during their walks Jesper would share snippets of his life in Stockholm. His life sounded so different from Mads’s when he’d been the same age. At fifteen, he’d already grown used to not knowing his father very well and not having him around.
But now it was Jesper’s last night in Copenhagen and he shuffled along even slower than usual. Mads couldn’t get much out of him. Questions were met with indifferent shrugs or “I don’t know…” and then silence. He didn’t push. But when they reached the steps leading up to the apartment, Jesper came to a halt and groaned and kicked the wall with his Converse-covered foot. Then he howled and hopped around like a confused child.
Mads tried not to grin. Hopefully, the boy hadn’t broken his toe. He waited for the tantrum to pass and reminded himself this would be his life soon–though it would be with a little girl instead of a teenage boy.
“You okay?”
“No…”
“You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“I… aww…fan…. I should hate you, right? I mean, you pretty much screwed up everything when you got together with Laney. I should hate her too–she left me, and she was the only one in that goddamn apartment who even gave a shit about me. But I can’t hate either of you, can I? She was never this happy with my dad. And you’re a good guy.”
“We didn’t want to hurt anyone–”
“But you did… my dad is still bitter. He might pretend he isn’t, but he is. And I miss Laney.” His scratchy voice echoed in the stairwell. Mads wondered if Laney was at home, if she’d heard them.
“You know Laney still cares about you. You know you can call us whenever you want to or need to.”
“That’s the thing. I should be so fucking pissed off right now and all I keep thinking is I’d rather live here with you guys and I know I can’t.”
“It’s like we told you before, Jesper. You can always come to us.”
“Not when the baby comes.”
“Why not?”
“You think Laney’s going to want me hanging around once she’s got her baby? You’re giving her what my dad never wanted to give her. You think she’s going to want me around then?”
“She’ll want you around. She’s got a soft spot for you,” Mads nudged Jesper’s shoulder and then slowly began climbing the stairs. “Come on. It’s fucking freezing.”
* * *
“He thinks you won’t want him around once we have the baby,” Mads told Laney. They’d just finished dinner and Jesper was in the living room, talking to his father and reassuring him that he was indeed coming home the next day.
“But… I told him he could always come to us.” Laney stopped and grimaced. She pulled out a chair from the table, then slid into it.
“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing…nothing. She’s moving around a lot.” Laney closed her eyes and breathed out slowly. Mads felt helpless. He didn’t know what to do–shit, how pathetic would he be when the baby finally decided she was ready to be born?
“Honey, don’t just pace…sit with me, hold my hand…put your hand on my belly and you can feel her.”
Mads knelt by her chair. One arm looped around the back of her chair as he leaned his forehead against her side. When she gently cupped the back of his head and stroked his neck, he felt the bubble of panic melt inside him. He did as she told him, let his hand rest on the curve of her belly and felt his daughter’s tiny foot graze his skin.
“That’s her…” Laney murmured. “That’s Liv.”
And for a little while he forgot about everything, there was nothing else that mattered. Just this moment when he could feel his daughter moving inside the woman he loved. And he wished even if he knew it wasn’t possible that he could share this with his mother. To tell her, “Look, mor, I found someone who makes me happy, who loves me…and I love her like she is the air I breathe. And we’ve created something so precious together.”
* * *
In the morning, they drove Jesper to Kastrup Airport and saw him off. Mads watched as Laney hugged the boy and fussed over him as he checked in and reminded him to call her as soon as he’d landed.
They walked him to the security check point and there, Jesper grabbed Laney in a tight hug and whispered something in her ear. She laughed and nodded, then kissed his cheek and ruffled his hair.
Jesper and Mads fist-bumped and then the boy shuffled off, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder.
As they headed back to the car, Mads laced his gloved fingers with Laney’s and held her close to him. The winter morning sun was just barely over the horizon and the sky was still pale gray with streaks of thin white clouds.
“You think he’ll be okay?” Mads asked.
Laney nodded. “He asked me if he could be Liv’s godfather. I told him he could be one of them. I hope that was okay.”
Mads grinned. “Yeah, that’s totally okay. He’ll be her surrogate big brother.”
16
ANGEL
“I had the strangest dream last night,” Laney murmured. It was Sunday morning and Christmas was just a week away. They’d agreed to get up early and finish the rest of their Christmas shopping but neither Mads nor Laney was in the mood to deal with the crowds. Besides, it felt too good to lie there together, their arms around one another, and watch snowflakes drift past the window.
“What were you dreaming about?”
“I dreamt I was in a room filled with babies and they were all different colors but they all looked like you…”
“You’re still worried about that?” She’d admitted once that she was afraid there would be a day when Liv would come home with a playmate who would turn out to be one of the children Mads had helped bring into the world. He’d tried to assure her it wasn’t likely, but even he worried about it sometimes. He didn’t know how many of the donations were successful. He didn’t really want to know. That part of his life was over.
“I keep thinking the lawyers missed something…or that the clinic will put pressure on you again.”
“I signed the paperwork officially terminating my services,” Mads reminded her and kissed her temples. Her skin was hot beneath his lips. “Are you feeling okay? You feel feverish.”
“I’m fine…I just woke up…and you’re so close to me…any girl would get a little hot and bothered.” she grinned at him but her eyes still looked a little glassy.
“You’re sure? You’d tell me if something was wrong?”
“I’m fine, Mads.” And then she kissed the tip of his nose and snuggled into him. “I don’t want to leave this bed. I want to stay here all day with you.”
“I’m hungry though…”
“You’re always hungry…” She sl
id her hand beneath the covers let her fingers trace a line from his chest to his thickening cock. “See? I know you so well.”
“Of course I want you…but I want proper food too.”
“No fun…” she disappeared under the covers and showed him a few reasons why staying in bed was a better idea…
* * *
By the time they made it out of bed, it was closer to lunchtime than breakfast. Laney took her time about showering and getting dressed, but she had good reason. Her baby bump was slowing her down. And now they knew she was much further along than they’d originally thought. When she first found out she pregnant, Mads and Laney assumed she couldn’t be more than three months pregnant. But they’d been off by a more than a month. All those times when they’d met in secret…neither of them thinking very much about condoms and only wanting to be close, to be joined and sated by one another. They both suspected she was already pregnant by the time they “met” at Ingrid and Anton’s, when Mads came face-to-face with Niklas and the reality of Laney’s life with him.
Now as he shrugged into his favorite fisherman’s sweater and pulled on his jeans, he tried not think about Laney and Niklas as a couple. There were moments when he envied the financial security Niklas probably took for granted. Without the extra money coming in from donations, Mads had to work harder at building his client base for the workshop, which meant longer hours and more mundane projects like installing kitchen cabinets or building shelving units.
He could hear her in the living room, on the phone with her cousin Eddy. Those two talked to each other so often. He knew she missed her cousin. Maybe he’d suggest that Eddy come and spend Christmas with them. Jesper had already called twice and asked if he could come down but Niklas had vetoed the idea and informed Laney that Jesper would be spending the holiday season in Thailand, with Niklas, Siri…and Karolina.