Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
As I listen to her, it’s hard to stop myself from getting defensive. Ella means this as a compliment, and I remind myself to take it that way. Everything she says is something I’ve heard before, though not from an employer. People I grew up with, friends in my early twenties, a handful of relationships where I let myself be the real me, and they all ended with people telling me I was strange or childish. They’d point out that I was silly for having plush toys, for talking to animals like they were human, for becoming obsessed about random things. They all ended with me feeling absolutely crushed, furthering this belief that deep down there is something fundamentally wrong with me and that there is no real safe place for me to exist.
“They bring out my inner child,” I tell her.
“Well, they bring out my inner adult,” she jokes as Bjorn starts hammering his fists against her jeans and making a yodeling sound.
Anyway, I know what to do with them now that Ella is here to help. The first step is to let Bjorn run wild through the house and do what he wants, while sequestering Tor in the playroom with a bunch of coloring books. After a while, when Bjorn gets tired, he’ll feel left out and come and join Tor, and everyone can get peace and quiet for a little bit.
“I’m going to do some coloring with Tor,” I tell Bjorn, taking Tor’s hand. “Do you want to come?”
“No!” Bjorn scream-laughs like a banshee and runs off.
Ella rolls her eyes. “I’ve got him.”
“Good luck,” I call after her as she stalks off after him.
“Hey, Tor,” I say, peering down at his white-blond head. “You want to color?”
“Yeah,” Tor says, nodding profusely.
I take him across the way to the playroom, which is any kid’s dream and honestly my favorite spot in the whole house. There’re plenty of toys, a baby grand piano, stuffed animals galore, and a long bookshelf. There’s a big purple plush chair and a large window looking out to the expansive front yard, now piled high with snow.
I had a small room to play in as a child, but the problem was that I was always left alone. My mother never, ever played with me, even when I begged, and my father pretty much pretended I didn’t exist. I grew out of the dolls and such when they died, having to suddenly grow up and be thrust into adult mode, so to see the boys having room to play and people to play with…just makes me feel like I’m in alignment, something I need to remember on days when the job feels hard.
“Let’s go into the castle,” I tell Tor, grabbing the colored pencils and books off their mini desks and bringing them into a tall, round tent in the corner that resembles a turret. I crawl into the corner, then make room for Tor, spreading the pencils and books out in front of us.
Then, for the next thirty minutes, both of us color to our hearts’ content. I’ve colored in an octopus in shades of green and purple, with magenta highlights, and Tor, well, he’s made a mess, but it’s an artistic mess that I tell him is worthy of being framed.
Ella comes by with Bjorn, dropping him off and saying she’s going to get some work done, but now Bjorn doesn’t want to color with pencils; he wants to make snowmen out of clay, so I go about getting the room set up for that. It makes a mess, but I truly believe children should be allowed to be as messy as they want. They won’t get away with it when they’re older.
Not long after we’ve settled down for some clay sculptures, I hear the front door open and the stomping of boots and Magnus’s booming voice swearing away, calling the snowstorm a drittsekk or “shitbag.”
“Uh-oh! Bad words,” Bjorn says with a grin, then abandons his art and runs out of the room to see his father, with Tor following behind.
I go after them in time to see Ella coming downstairs and Magnus and James brushing mounds of snow off their jackets.
“What happened?” Ella asks. “I tried to reach you all day.”
“Phone died and roads were total shit on the way over, and the car is stuck down at the bottom of the hill,” Magnus says, shaking his shaggy hair so snow flies everywhere. “Ottar and Einar grabbed shovels to dig it out. I’m telling you, I’ve never seen it come down so hard.”
“I better get a shovel too,” James says, turning for the door, but Magnus reaches out and stops him.
“Relax,” Magnus says. “Stay put. They’ve got this. I’m not going to have both PPOs breaking their back.”
“I’d hardly call snow-shoveling backbreaking work,” James says dryly. “We do have snow in Scotland, you know.”