Page 7 of A Curse for the Homesick

BETTER

2022

When I got back to Sjo with the birthday cake, I put the car in Park but didn’t open the door. Through the dark tinted windows, I watched guests trickle in and pretended I was not waiting for anyone in particular. Had he left the bakery just behind me? Had he made a stop along the way, biding his time so we didn’t run into each other again any earlier than necessary?

I heard the familiar rumble of a grumpy engine, and a Camry puffed into view. My dad was driving. For a moment, I thought he was looking at me—I lifted a hand, but it was dark and my windows were tinted. His gaze remained fixed forward, his face slack.

I climbed out of the car with the cake as he parked. It took him a minute to notice me—a raven was cawing and cawing from the nearest light post, and the fog seemed to swallow all other noise—but then finally I said, “Hi.”

He turned. For a minute it seemed like he might rush at me, that we would be a happy chaos of limbs, but then he hesitated, rocking forward on his heels, rocking back again.

I smiled at him, feeling nervous and guilty and uncertain, and he smiled back—or tried to, getting there in the mouth if not in the eyes. He took the cake box and placed it gingerly on the roof of his car, then he folded me into his arms. I tried to think of what to say first—that I loved him or that I’d missed him. Each time I left Stenland, I stayed away longer, and each time I came back, I felt more like a tourist: not just on the roads or in the restaurants but within the relationships that shaped me.

“Happy birthday,” he said quietly.

“It’s so nice to see you.”

“I recorded the Grand Prix, if you want to watch it together when we get home?”

“Sure,” I said, and he kissed the top of my head.

“You’ve seen Linnea and Kitty?” he asked.

“We got ready together.”

“That’s good. That’s very good.”

When Soren’s truck appeared, we both looked up. He parked as far from us as possible but still nodded in a cordial, forced sort of way as he passed. The wind flattened his hair, blowing it back from his face.

I thought of other times I had seen him like this, facing down the wind: his hair light with California sun, tousled in a eucalyptus breeze; his hands deep in his pockets, chin to his chest, as he made his solitary way across the croft. I wished I could tell Kitty and Linnea how I felt, but I wasn’t sure how to say it in a way that wouldn’t sound like I still loved him, because I didn’t. It was just that so much of what I felt when I thought of Stenland was shame. I was ashamed I’d been born here and ashamed I’d left. I was ashamed of the distance between me and my dad—between me and everyone. And when I saw Soren, who was clever and beautiful and good, who knew me as well as anyone could, who’d loved me but not forever: it was just a shame.

“Well,” my dad said, lifting the cake. “ get this inside.”

Kitty texted me.

Kitty: Alert, alert, Soren has arrived. You are hot/brilliant and I love you!!!

A few seconds later, from Linnea:

Linnea: Hi love—just fyi soren is here now. I didn’t want you to be surprised. Rehearsal starts soon hope all is going okay with the cake x

I felt my dad watching me. I blinked, staring straight forward.

“You have good friends,” he said.

“I do.”

“It’ll get better.”

“What?”

He nodded at the door. “Seeing him. Maybe you can, you know, be friends someday.”

I pressed my fingers into my shoulder, trying to force the tension from the muscle. Sometimes I could still feel a pang when I did that, the memory of injury.

“I don’t think that’s—I think I would find that difficult.”

My dad didn’t argue. He never did. He just smoothed the hair out of my face and told me we’d better go inside.