Hyggelig II
Hyggelig (Danish) — a warm, friendly, cozy, delightfully intimate moment or thing.
Carol had watched the way that Therese had almost tiptoed up to her house, bemused by the subconscious delicacy with which the younger woman seemed to apply to every situation. She’d been sat in this window-seat for almost half an hour now and the glee which filled her heart to see an unfamiliar car slide into the driveway was… disconcerting. At the sound of Therese’s careful knock, she stilled the anxious tapping of her nails on the windowpane, giving her reflection a once-over in the hallway mirror as she started down the stairs. She was doing less, today, in general — no lipstick, barely a touch of mascara, clad in some worn jeans and a cashmere jumper that slid off of her left shoulder. Whether the choice had been deliberate or not to expose her defined collarbones to Therese was a question Carol decided against answering, tightening her grip on the handle as she tugged the door open.
“Therese, hi. Come in.”
Carol’s collarbone, Therese decided, could have cut steel. How can one woman be so perfectly defined? The question plagued her as she smiled nonchalantly up at the blonde, far too attached to the way Carol had said hi rather than her usual hello. Was that a wall coming down or was that deliriously wishful thinking? God, it was getting hard to tell. Either way, the older woman was leaning against the doorframe in a fashion that could only have been described as relaxed, and the idea of Carol being relaxed around her made Therese almost as excited as the shoulder that her sweater exposed.
Jesus Christ, Therese. It’s a fucking shoulder.
Therese cleared her throat as she walked in, her breath catching once again at the sheer vastness of the place from the inside. The ceiling seemed almost high enough to encase the expanse of her endlessly racing thoughts, and she peered up past the carpeted staircase at the house that was almost too big to be called a home.
“Carol, your house is…”
Carol smiled a tired smile that she had clearly plastered on a thousand times before.
“Big? I know. It was nice, back when…”
Back when what? Therese glanced up as the older woman’s featured seemed to blank, the way her throat moved a clear demonstration of her swallowing down whatever she had been about to say.
“I’m selling it soon, hopefully. Got a new place lined up on Madison Avenue, and I should be in there by next February.”
The momentary lapse in countenance had caught both women unaware and Therese took a step closer to Carol, her green eyes searching quietly for what exactly had happened, back when.
“I never got to say thanks, for inviting me over.”
Carol stilled, the panic in her features morphing back into easy appreciation for the subject change. She placed a careful hand on Therese’s arm, passing it off as a friendly gesture. A ruse which anyone, surely, could have seen through, had they not been so blinded by the feel of skin on skin.
“Don’t worry about it, darling. It’s the least I could do.”
Darling.
Darling.
Therese paused, Carol’s fingertips still resting just above her elbow. This had clearly been something of a deliberate move — the older woman was regarding her with an air of caution that Therese hadn’t seen. The threateningly familiar warmth of a blush creeping up past her cheeks started to make itself apparent and in a bid to distract Carol, Therese moved her own hand to place it on top of the blonde’s.
“Still, it’s appreciated. I’m usually alone on Sunday nights.”
The air between them writhed, Carol’s gaze drilling into Therese’s as if to find a crack to exploit. There was nothing. With a distracted smile, Carol brought her arm back to her side, turning to the kitchen and releasing a breath she’d barely been aware of holding. Behind her, Therese cupped the fingers of her left hand in her right palm, inspecting them as if to find trace of the presence that was Carol. She was becoming rather fond of this new approach of theirs — testing waters, holding gazes, playing this tantalising waiting game.
“You staying for dinner?”
Carol paused and turned before she headed into the kitchen, her eyes feigning indifference, her posture playing at boredom. The single nail which tapped nervously against her jeans betrayed them both. An unspoken question found its way into Therese’s countenance, her eyes scanning Carol for an answer. Do you want me to?
A small, determined nod that could have been an accidental twitch in any other circumstance. Yes.
“I’d love to.”
“You should really try it.”
Carol looked unconvinced.
“Seriously! It’s not as bad as everyone makes it out to be, I swear.”
The two women were sprawled in front of the coffee table, pizza boxes open and nearly empty in front of them. As it turned out, neither woman was a particularly skilled cook and it had taken them moments to decide that takeaway would be by far the easiest option. Carol had opted for sushi, Therese had gone for burgers and chips. Pizza was a welcome — if somewhat unprecedented — compromise. Therese, now, was dangling a piece of Hawaiian pizza in front of a decidedly anti-pineapple Carol, the grin on her face too hopeful to resist.
“Fine. But just so you know, pineapples belong in a piña colada, and I stand by that.”
It had gone 10pm, and they had finished a bottle of wine between them. Therese was clearly feeling the buzz of it, her cheeks slightly flushed with the stain that alcohol so notoriously left.
"Open sesame? Do people still say that?"
Carol obliged, slowly, her focus caught between the adorably determined look on Therese’s face and the pizza that she was about to be fed. Whether it was the tipsiness or the general air of comfort that they had both slipped into, proximity had increased and every so often Therese’s fingers would graze Carol’s thigh, lighting a match between both of them that Carol had been quick to put out with another sip of wine. At this point, she could barely tell if it was helping anything at all.
Therese leaned ever closer, her eyes fixed on Carol and her reaction to the stigmatised pizza. Her index finger brushed against the blonde’s lip as Carol finally allowed herself a taste, pineapple and tomato sauce clashing together in a wild flurry of flavours.
“So? Whaddya think?”
There was a slight slur to her words and Carol grinned, as if she could think about anything but the tip of Therese’s finger tracing the edges of her lips. Do that again, she wanted to whisper — would have whispered, had she been victim to just one more glass of wine, channelling her distraction instead to her reaction.
“It’s… interesting.”
“Interesting? Is that the best you can do? Come on, make like a food critic and tell me how you feel.”
Hopelessly aroused. Carol tried to silence the thought — it got louder.
“I feel divine, Therese.”
If Therese noticed the salacious edge to Carol’s words, she didn’t show it, instead pumping a fist into the air.
“I told you you’d like it! See? It’s good!”
She offered the remaining fraction of the slice to Carol who smiled, turning it down on account of the fact that she was decidedly against Hawaiian pizza.
I couldn’t give less of a shit about pineapples.
“Should I light a fire?”
Therese nodded eagerly, the excitement flooding her features.
“God yes. I haven’t sat in front of a fire in ages. Can I help?”
“Help… light a fire?”
“Or I can watch you. That’s just as good.”
Whatever that was supposed to mean, Carol didn’t have time to analyse — Therese jumped up, crumbs tumbling from her shirt as she pulled the blonde with her. Before long, the fire had been set and all there was left to do was to actually set it alight.
“Do you have a lighter? Or matches?”
Carol shot Therese a sarcastic look.
“No, I was planning on using my capabilities as a dragon to start it.”
“It wasn’t that stupid a question.”
A shrug, a smile.
“Maybe not. Matches are on the chest of drawers in the drawing room, I think.”
Therese had no idea where the drawing room was. What the hell even was a drawing room? Nonetheless, she stood, wobbling on her way into the bold new expedition as Carol watched her go.
Moments passed.
“Therese?”
The lack of response didn’t worry Carol — it was a big house, and thick walls didn’t bode well for the travel of sound. She pulled herself up from her place by the hearth anyway, figuring that if Therese was lost it would be in everyone’s best interest to find her. As was predicted, the drawing room was empty, matches sitting untouched on the drawers.
Far-end lounge, Carol guessed. It was where lost guests always seemed to end up for some reason, sitting at the very edge of the house as it did. The matches rattled in the pocket of her jeans as she walked in and Therese looked up, as startled as if she’d been doing something wrong.
“Everything okay?”
The brunette swallowed, motioning to shelf in the corner.
“Who are they?”
The photos. Carol’s stomach dropped, her mind reeling with all of the possible lies she could make up as she had to all of the other people who had frequented the house in the last two year. Friends. Cousins. Pen-pals. Why lie? To Therese, at least. What, really, was the point?
“The man on the left… are you sure you want to know?”
Therese straightened up, an expression on her face that Carol couldn’t quite break through. Was it… hurt?
“He’s your husband.”
Carol paused, unused to anyone hazarding a guess and certainly not accustomed to them getting it right.
“And the girl’s… your daughter, I’m assuming?”
It was all that the blonde could do to nod. Therese seemed notably more sober than she had been minutes ago. The map that she had been so carefully charting, of Carol, of everything she thought Carol was — it vanished from her hands, disintegrating into an ashy substance and staining her fingers as it drifted away. A family. An entire atlas, rewritten.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Carol?”
The silence twisted between them like a lie.
“It’s… complicated.”
“But it’s not. It’s not complicated. You have a husband, and a daughter, and you neglected to tell me, this whole time. I wouldn’t call that complicated at all, to be honest.”
Her words were so saturated with venom that Carol flinched. Outside, there wasn’t even white noise to distract them and Therese was reminded once more of the sheer silence that this place was drenched in. When she spoke again, her words had softened.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you have a family?”
Carol steeled herself, her breaths speeding just slightly up in the quietude. The darkness shrouded them both, and part of her wished that she could switch a light on just to see the expression on Therese’s face.
“Had.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I had a family.”
The quiet gasp that broke free from Therese’s throat made Carol realise that she didn’t need a light at all. Before the younger woman could start apologising, Carol crossed the room to grasp hold of Therese, to close the distance that didn’t need to be there at all.
“Can we talk about this… in the pizza room?”
Her hand closed around Therese’s, a thousand apologies streaming their way between them.
“I married Harge when we were twenty-five. I never loved him as I think I should have done, but he knew that — I loved him as… a best friend, anyway. He loved me back, in a fashion that was equally as platonic, and that was all that it seemed we needed. For five years we lived like that, as married friends, and it worked. It was more of an agreement. Should we do this with each other so we don’t have to do it with anyone else?”
Carol glanced across at Therese to check that she was still listening. The brunette nodded, urging her on.
“And then we… we had a daughter. Another one of those agreements. To keep the parents happy, I think. As it turned out, though, even though we ourselves weren’t necessarily in love, we loved Rindy with the exact same kind of affection as any other parents did. In a strange way she brought us together in a way that no marriage could have done. She was our world, and it sounds stupid, I know, but she was…”
A staggered breath. Almost a sob. Not quite. Not yet.
“And… and she was five when she got ill. Pneumonia. We were told it would pass, because she was healthy, because we’d taken such good care of her, but she just—”
This time, when she looked up at Therese, her eyes were glassed over. Pools of unshed tears sat just above her cheeks. Therese studied her for a brief moment, before lacing an arm around Carol’s shoulder, pulling her gently down into the sofa. For a while, in silence, they lay there, Carol kicking off her shoes to properly lie down. Her head came to rest on Therese’s chest, and eternities could have passed before she spoke again.
“She just kept on getting worse.”
And now she did sob, hiding her face in Therese’s shirt as she pulled her tighter. She remembered, here, suddenly, far too suddenly, the strain of a three-night stint in a new hospital, the catch in Harge’s voice every time anyone asked about their daughter, the hope, that awful hope, that dissipated every day until all that was left was a writhing pile of broken promises. In the end, it had been acceptance. There’s still a chance that Rindy can pull through, the doctors would say. No, there isn’t, her mind started to reply.
“I’m sorry, this is—”
“No. No it’s not. It’s brave, Carol. It’s so, so brave.”
Seconds passed, two women lying on a sofa, as intertwined as lovers might be. Carol took a breath as Therese stroked a thumb up and down her shoulder.
“And then we woke up, Harge and I, one day… we were in the hospital, of course, because towards the end we never really left. We couldn’t. We couldn’t leave our Rindy.”
Therese reached her spare hand down to cup Carol’s cheek, her thumb swiping away a tear with gentle consideration.
“Nobody had called us, we were just sitting in the waiting room… but we both sat up. At exactly the same time. It was 3:51am. And he looked at me…”
“Carol?”
“Harge?”
The bleak lights of the hospital shone unforgivingly down onto two faces still mussed with sleep. A moment of understanding passed between them both, and a sob found its roots deep in Carol’s chest. They said it at the same time. A name. A wish. An answer.
“Rindy.”
“And we knew.”
Carol fought back another sob.
“She was gone.”
Therese leaned down to kiss the crown of Carol’s head, just as Carol looked up. Their faces were inches from each other, suddenly. Therese could feel the whisper of the blonde’s breath on her lips.
“She didn’t deserve that, Therese. She was so good. Always said please, and thank you, and she was just learning to read, and she had so much life in her, she didn’t deserve—”
She buried her head into Therese’s chest again, tears soaking the fabric through. She didn’t deserve to die.
“I loved her.”
And you lost her. Therese would never have said it, but here was the reason for the barriers that Carol had so carefully constructed. She couldn’t afford to love, because she couldn’t afford to lose. She didn’t know how to love, anymore.
“Harge disappeared into himself, after. I did, too, but not quite… not quite like him. He wouldn’t come outside, not even to the funeral, wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t drink. Losing her broke both of us, but it shattered him.”
She looped her arms under Therese, pulling them closer, always.
“It was only a few weeks later, he’d… he’d been drinking. Hadn’t eaten anything for three days, barely got a glass of water down — and he drank half a bottle of whiskey. The police were surprised he could even see straight enough to get in the car.”
The car. Carol nodded into Therese’s chest as if to confirm her suspicions.
“He crashed. Ploughed into a tree. The car we had — a Porsche — it was too fast to leave him any hope of survival, and I think he knew that. Within a month, I’d lost two of the only things that could ever matter to me.”
“Carol… I—”
Carol pressed a single finger to Therese’s lips, pleading.
“Don’t be sorry. Please, don’t be sorry. There are so many people out there who say they’re sorry, and I just… for what? They didn’t crash the car. They didn’t give my daughter pneumonia. They just exist. They have nothing to be sorry for, and they say it anyway. It’s like they’re bragging, sometimes. Sorry that you have to go through this, and I don’t. Sorry that you lost your entire family when I’ve still got three kids and a loving husband.”
She let out a shuddering sigh, clenching her hands into fists.
“Don’t be sorry. Just be here.”
Therese nodded, this time succeeding in pressing a lingering kiss to Carol’s head. The blonde whimpered into her, pressing ever tighter into her chest.
“I’m here.”
You won’t lose me.