Page 161
“Ruth.”
“I moved them.” She shuts the cupboard with her hip. “Your wife can reach that shelf. You can reach any of them. Eighteen years and nobody has ever asked me to explain my reasoning.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“You were building up to it.”
She takes her bag off the back of the chair. Astrid comes through with her laptop under one arm, and Ruth says goodnight to her by name, which took about four days and which I’ve decided not to comment on in front of either of them.
Astrid waits until Tova is upstairs before she opens the flight search again.
I sit beside her and keep my hands off the laptop.
She opens three itineraries. Two of them she closes before I’ve finished reading the first line. The one she keeps costs more and gives Tova almost two hours in Copenhagen, and she checks the arrival time a third time, because she reads things three times when the decision matters, even when she understood them the first.
“You want me to check anything?”
“Yes. Make sure I am not missing something.”
That’s new.
I lean closer. The connection is good, the arrival is before dinner, her mother is picking Tova up in Stockholm.
“Same.”
Then she opens her bank account, and I look away.
“You do not have to do that.”
Checking.
Savings.
HOUSE.
I know about the house fund. Tova mentioned it months ago, back when Astrid still talked about buying a place as though every room were a separate negotiation. A kitchen with the counter where she wanted it. A wall she could put a nail into. A bedroom with a door that shut.
I thought it was about a house.
She opens it. The balance comes up and she transfers the airfare out and watches the number drop, and then keeps watching what is left until the screen starts to dim. I know enough to see that the ticket costs more than the screen says. I don’t know enough to know why.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Anything useful I can do?”
“No.”
“Then I’m staying out of the way.”
Her mouth tightens. She’s checking me.
She clicks back into the account.
“What was it for?” I ask.
“The house.”
