“OK, sure, but let’s wait until after the kids go to bed. Right now I want to eat and take a shower. And be alone for a little while.”
I thought about saying that you couldn’t be alone in this house and that was really part of the problem, but instead I went into the living room where the kids were. Later I noticed that Bj?rnar had his math calculations out at the kitchen table, and when we were sitting on the sofa just over an hour later, each with a glass of wine, he gave me a look that showed he was wondering if I might be a little dim, mentally.
“I don’t get what you were thinking,” he repeated.
“No. What are we going to do?”
“First and foremost we’re not going to let you be responsible for anything.”
I looked away.
“And I cannot cut back after all.”
“What do you mean? At work? Had you been thinking about cutting back your hours at work?”
“I’m just saying that now I can’t, whether I want to or not.”
“Should we call Ms. Shabby Chic?”
“We’ll keep it for one year and see how it goes. And then we can try to sell again if we find that it’s too expensive. And hopefully the market doesn’t change too much during that time.”
I tried to laugh, but all that came out was a small croak.
“But you’re going to need to do all the work when it comes to selling this house: the real estate agent, the appraiser, the staging photos, packing, cleaning. Everything. From now on this is your project. I’m going to have to work as much as I possibly can if we’re going to be able to afford this. It didn’t occur to you that we were going to have to pay for the agent or the closing costs or the title transfer fee, either, did it?”
I shrank and opened my mouth, but he kept talking.
“If you’re going to apologize, you can forget it. Just let me know when you’ve sold this house. That’s what I want. And next time, you could stick to the plan we agreed to.”
“But we did agree to make an offer.”
“For almost a million kroner less than the one you ended up making.”
“Luckily I almost never buy new underwear.”
“What?”
“The underwear I’m wearing today, I bought it when we were on that BritRail trip fifteen years ago. I saved us some money there, anyway.”
“You know, that’s not even funny. You’ve almost bankrupted us. Do you get that?”
I nodded and took a gulp of my wine. It was a little hard to swallow.
“I’m going to bed. I’m exhausted.”
“I’m going to bed, too,” I said. “Just so you know.”
I took a few good swigs from my glass and tried not to listen to the sound of rumbling from the Deep.
11
Bj?rnar looked up from the paper with an expression that showed he didn’t understand what I was talking about.
“We have to tell the kids we bought a new house,” I repeated.
“Oh, yeah, that,” he said tiredly. “Be my guest.”
But when they looked at me, their faces were way too full of anticipation, as if they expected to hear that we were going to Legoland or they would be getting their own iPhones.
“Your father and I are getting a divorce,” I finally said.
I didn’t really know what I was thinking. At any rate I never thought they would take me seriously. It was supposed to be kind of a warm-up joke. I mean, it was totally unlikely that we were going to get a divorce, even with my almost bankrupting us. But when I saw Ebba’s and Jenny’s faces, I realized it had been the wrong thing to say. It was totally wrong.
“What?” exclaimed Ebba, and I could see a faint quiver in her lower lip.
“You’re getting a divorce?” Jenny said slowly.
“Are you completely nuts?” Bj?rnar asked.
I tried to laugh, but croaking was still the best I could do.
“We are not getting a divorce,” Bj?rnar explained. “What your insane mother is trying to tell you is that she spent absolutely all our money, along with quite a bit of money we don’t have, buying that house we went to look at last weekend. So we can’t get divorced, because we can’t afford it. We’re going to move, all of us together. In just a few months.”
“Ta-da!” I shouted and flung out my arms. “Then you’ll each get to have your own room. How great is that?”
They looked down at the table.
“We’re not getting a divorce,” I repeated. “That was just a bad joke. Daddy and I love each other very much, right?”
“Right now I love you slightly less than I used to.”
“But we usually love each other.”
“You’re going to have to shape up,” he said, setting down his newspaper. “I have to go.”
“I don’t want to move,” Ebba complained. “I want to stay here.”
“I totally want to move,” Jenny said. “But I don’t get where?”
“We’re going to move to that red house Daddy and Alva and I went to look at last weekend. The one you guys thought was lame. It’ll be wonderful. Right, Alva? Alva?”
“What?” she asked without looking up from the iPad.
“We’re going to live in that house with the M&M’S. Isn’t that great?”
“I like M&M’S.”
“There, you see?” I concluded.
Bj?rnar leaned over and gave Ebba a hug.
“I’m sure it will be fine, Ebba, honey. But right now we have to go. I can give you guys a ride. Mama has to drop Alva off at preschool, and then she has to get busy selling the house we live in now. For a lot of money.”
“Someone will snatch it up in a flash. No problemo!”
I called the real estate agent who had recently sold our neighbor’s house.
“Yeah, a lot of people thought that house was too big, so there may be some interest on the market for your property,” she said.
“Great,” I said. “Maybe you could call some of the people who were interested in the neighbor’s house? We’d actually consider selling our place without listing it. The whole process is so exhausting—the photo shoot, all the open houses, flyers, all that business—we’d actually love to skip all that, save a little money, save ourselves a little stress.”