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The Forbidden Center

Page 159

by A.J. Kingsley

“Really?”

I do not like the question.

“Yes. Really.”

She looks at my face, checking. Then she smiles.

“Can I call Mormor?”

“Yes.”

She grabs her phone and runs upstairs.

Colt watches her go. Then he looks at me.

“Do not.”

“I was going to ask if you wanted water.”

“No, you were not.”

“No.”

He comes around the island but leaves the laptop where it is.

“Will you help me look later?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

An hour later, Tova’s suitcase is open across the end of her bed.

She has packed three sweaters, two books, six pairs of socks, and no underwear.

I hold up one sweater.

“You understand Sweden still has washing machines.”

“Mormor keeps the apartment cold.”

“That is because she thinks heating is a personal weakness.”

Tova smiles and continues folding badly.

My daughter is going to Sweden. I have checked the account twice. There is enough for one. Her travel document came this week, faster than Elena said it would.

I fold the sweater she has just ruined and put it back into the case.

I go downstairs for the European adaptor, which lives in the drawer with the rubber bands and the spare keys and the batteries that may or may not be finished.

The listing is still at the bottom of it, folded in half the way I folded it the day I printed it.

I put it back without opening it and take the adaptor upstairs.

Her top drawer is where everything else of hers ends up, and under two hair bands and the Swedish coins she keeps because one has a hole through the middle, I find a folded sheet of printer paper.

Three figures stand behind a kitchen island.

Tova has made herself too short, Colt absurdly tall, and my hair bright yellow. Three stools sit in front of the counter, but all three of us are drawn standing on the same side.