Page 103

Astrid gives me nothing to hit.

“You told me to listen,” I say.

“And you did, until you found the first answer you could act on.”

I look at the word on the page. “It isn’t just an answer.”

“Then tell me what it is without giving me a room assignment.”

I open my mouth and the house arrives first again. Her coat by my door. Tova’s books on the stairs. The piano against the wall I never use.

All the evidence I’ve got is a life I built while she was still talking.

So I start somewhere else.

“I want you.”

Her fingers tighten once on the edge of the table.

“Not a petition. Not an answer. You.” I point down the hall without meaning to. “And Tova’s not some add-on to marrying you. I’m asking for her too. I don’t want her moved around because the adults ran out of time. I don’t want her leaving her school or Gabi or the people she knows here. I don’t want either one of you to go.”

Astrid looks at me for a long time.

“Sweden would not erase her life.”

“I didn’t say it would.”

“You talk as though staying is the only way to keep her whole.”

I hear it after she’s said it. The country as the opponent. The house as the win.

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I believe you.”

“You keep saying that like it should help.”

“It should.”

Her voice changes then. Not colder. Less protected.

“If I thought you did not care, the answer would be easy.”

The air goes out of me slowly. “So it isn’t easy.”

“No.”

The word gives me hope before the next one can get there.

“It is still no.”

I put both palms flat on the table. The left one feels the wood. All of it.

“Astrid.”

“Tova’s father bought his ticket before he told me he was leaving.”

I don’t move.