Maybe Tonight (6 page)

That night, Mads walked home in the freezing cold and tried to focus on what was ahead of him. He wasn’t the same angry, insecure teenager who lost his mother too soon. He was a man now. Soon to be a father. But walking alone, on near-deserted streets did nothing to improve his mood. He’d thought seeing his father and telling him about the baby would make him feel better. If anything, it had left an even larger hole inside him. Questions still remained unanswered.

By the time he reached
Dronning
Louise Bridge, the questions he hadn’t asked, the ones he’d felt too uncertain to ask, burned inside him. Almost too soon his apartment building loomed ahead. The sky was a weird orangey black with thick, heavy clouds. Snowflakes fluttered down around him as he stared up at the windows to his bedroom. Laney was sleeping still, he knew this. She hadn’t called and asked where he was. Lately she slept like the dead. Sometimes he woke in the middle of the night afraid that something was wrong and her steady, even breathing and the heat rising from her body was enough to reassure him. Maybe that was all he needed now, to be close to her again.

He pressed in the code to the main door and then pushed it open. His neighbors’ bikes were all jumbled to the right, under the loggia and protected from the falling snow. Tomorrow he’d have to remember to move his and Laney’s bikes to the shed. He crossed the cobblestone courtyard and then climbed the timeworn granite steps to his apartment. For a brief moment an image of his father, his lined face and sallow skin, his shaggy, dull gray hair flooded his mind. Damn it, no good would come of their being in touch.

He fumbled for his keys. He could have sworn he’d shoved them in his jacket pocket but they weren’t there now. Had he dropped them along the way home? Walking back to his father’s place would take too long and it was too cold. His legs were freezing and the gloves he wore weren’t thick enough to hold the pervasive damp chill at bay. A stream of choice curses rushed out of him as he knocked on the door. What an idiot he was…the keys….they’d fallen out of his jacket pocket at his father’s place and now he could picture them on the scarred coffee table, waiting for him to return to claim them. He’d have to go back in the morning. His keys to the workshop were on that key ring.

The door creaked open and a very sleepy-looking Laney pulled him inside.

“Where’ve you been?” she asked as she fidgeted with the buttons on his coat. “I woke up and you weren’t here.”

“I went to see my father,” he said and gathered her in his arms. Holding her close, breathing in the warm scent of her skin and the faintly floral scent of the oil she used in her hair always calmed him. “I don’t know if it helped. I don’t know what I want from him.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing…I don’t know. I told him about the baby, but he knew already. Henrik had already told him.”

“Was he interested?”

Mads kissed the top of Laney’s head, then planted a gentle kiss on her forehead. She smiled up at him and pushed the darkness away. “I…he said she should name her Liv.”

“After your mother…”

He nodded.

“We should. We could call her Olivia and have Liv as her nickname, or we could call her simply Liv.”

“You’re okay with that?”

“I know you call her Liv already.” She stepped back and then pushed his coat off his shoulders. “I saw it on the designs for the nursery.”

Mads hung up his coat and unraveled the woolen scarf from around his neck. A teenage boy wandered into the living room. He looked uncertain, tired. “Hvem er det?” Mads asked Laney cautiously though he had an idea already. The boy looked too much like Laney’s ex, Niklas. He hung back and said a cautious “
hej
“. “
Er det Jesper?
”

Laney nodded. “He arrived a little while ago.”

Mads regarded the teenager. Something about his slumped shoulders and the dazed expression on his face reminded him of the teenager he’d once been. “Does your dad know you’re here?”

Jesper shook his head no. “I just needed a break. And…I missed Laney.” His voice was raspy as he spoke. He didn’t look up from his feet.

“You can stay here with us,” Mads said. Laney leaned into him and he slung his arm over her shoulder. “But you need to call your father and tell him you’re here.”

“He’s at a conference in Barcelona,” Jesper retorted sullenly. He finally looked up from the floor and raked his hair back from his face. A bluish bruise shined from under his right eye.

“What happened to you?” Mads went over to him and examined the black eye. It looked fresh, perhaps only a day old at most.

“Someone hit me.”

Mads grinned at him. “I can see that.”

“Who hit you?” Laney asked him. “Were you in a fight at school?”

“Skinhead asshole at school.” Jesper muttered.

Laney took Jesper’s hand and led him into the kitchen. “You were good at hiding this from me when you arrived.”

“I didn’t want you to worry,” he muttered.

Mads pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and gestured for Jesper to sit. “Are you hungry?”

“Laney already gave me something to eat.” But Mads began pulling cold cuts out of the refrigerator anyway. Teenage boys were always hungry.

Laney handed Jesper a bag of frozen peas. “For your eye. It’ll keep it from swelling more.”

While Mads made sandwiches, he eavesdropped on the conversation Laney and Jesper were having. There was an easiness to them that he hadn’t expected. Laney was sitting at the table now, holding Jesper’s free hand and telling him he needed to at least leave a voicemail for his father.

“Nobody cares what’s going on with me,” Jesper muttered. “I wish I could just stay here with you.”

“Honey, you know you can’t…you’ve got your mom and your dad.”

“You were the one who always looked out for me.”

“I know, sweetie, but things are different now…”

“Dad didn’t tell me you were pregnant. Does he know?”

“I don’t know. I left a voicemail for him but he never answered.”

“So…your boyfriend, he seems nice. I can’t understand him so well though.”

Laney laughed. “Speak English with him then…He can speak Swedish too. He used to live there.”

Mads grinned at the boy and said in perfect Swedish, “It’s true. I lived there for four…maybe five years.” Then Mads set the plate of sandwiches on the table and sat opposite Laney.

He watched how she mothered Jesper, how she brushed his hair away from his forehead and chided him for not getting a haircut, how she seemed to know the right way to ask questions so the boy would answer without the usual sulky “I don’t know” or “Leave me alone” he remembered from his youth.

And as they sat there, Jesper finally told them about the skinhead who’d stalked him, who’d called him a svartskalle because Jesper had a girlfriend–a girl who was born in Sweden but whose parents were from Iran. Mads inched closer to the boy, remember how it had been when he’d been in love and defended a girl…he still bore the scars from it.

When Jesper finished his story, Mads tapped his own nose. “Do you see these ridges?” He hoped he’d phrased it properly in Swedish.

Jesper nodded slowly.

“They’re my battle scars in the name of love.” he told him. “I got suspended from school because of it but I know I did the right thing.”

“I’m suspended too.” Jesper admitted. He ducked his head sheepishly.

“How long?” Mads asked.

“Five days.”

“If your dad says it’s okay, you can stay here during those five days, but you have to come to the workshop with me.”

“Okay.”

“We’re going to finish two projects, you and I. Bedroom furniture.”

“I don’t know how to do anything like that though.”

“I’ll show you,” Mads assured him. He nudged the plate of sandwiches closer to Jesper. “You call your dad and make sure it’s okay.”

“Okay, I will.”

Laney looked both relieved and pleased. She mouthed a “thank you” at Mads, then she focused on Jesper again. “You know you will always be special to me, Jeppe.”

“You too, Laney. It’s just not the same without you.”

“I know, sweetie.” She pushed herself to her feet. “But there will always be a place for you…no matter what. There’s always a place for you here.”

Jesper flicked a cautious look at Mads. Mads nodded. “You can always come to us.”

“I don’t know,” she said as she draped the sweater over the chair where she always put her clothes. “We can talk to him about it tomorrow.” She was speaking Danish now, carefully trying to put the right words together and it made Mads smile. His ex-wife had never cared about learning Danish, had called it an ugly language. She’d hated everything about Denmark.

“I don’t mind that Jesper is here.” Mads pulled back the covers on Laney’s side of the bed. She picked her way slowly over to the bed,  one hand on the mound of her belly as the other grazed the mattress. “I just don’t want any trouble with Niklas about this.”

“I don’t think there will be.” Laney sat on the edge of the bed and then eased back. “My back is really sore today.”

“Come here…”

She scooted closer to him and lay on her side. Mads lifted the edge of her shirt and began rubbing gentle circles on her skin. From the guest room, they could hear Jesper settling in. At one point, he called out Laney’s name and asked if it was okay if he watched TV. She told him it was as long as the volume wasn’t too high.

“So this is what we have to look forward to?” Mads joked. He could just imagine a teenage Liv, rolling her eyes at her parents being so silly, so old-fashioned and wishing they were a little cooler.

“Pretty much,” Laney laughed. “At least we have a few years when she’ll adore us.”

They were just falling asleep, Mads pushing thoughts of his father out of his mind and Laney breathing heavily and sighing when Laney’s phone rang. She groaned as she answered it.

Mads lay close to her, stroking Laney’s hair as she tried to get a word in. It was Niklas. He was sure of it. Probably furious they hadn’t sent Jesper home.

“I told him he could stay,” Laney finally said. “You weren’t home, he wanted to be somewhere where he could feel home and he came here.”

“Tell him it’s okay…” Mads murmured. He massaged Laney’s shoulder. She was tensing. She always did when Niklas called.

“I did…” she said quietly. Then to Niklas: “If you want him to come home, then you should call him and speak to him tomorrow…Tomorrow, Niklas. It’s too late to put him on a flight now.”

When she finally hung up, she turned and curled into Mads. He brushed her hair from her face and kissed her. He didn’t want her to go to sleep angry, even if it was Niklas’s fault. “We’ll be okay,” he whispered to her in the darkness. “Everything will sort itself out.”

Jesper was still sleeping when Mads entered the guest room. It was eight in the morning and he was ready to go to the workshop. He shook Jesper by the shoulder. “Time to go…” he said gruffly. “Up and at ‘em.”

Jesper mumbled and tried to turn over, but Mads caught his shoulder again. “We’re leaving in twenty minutes. Get up.”

“I thought I could sleep in…”

“Nope, we’re going to the workshop today,” Mads reminded him. “And you’re going to help me finish two projects. And you’re going to call your dad.”

Mads turned on the bedside lamp, then he flicked on the ceiling light. Jesper groaned, “C’mon…”

“A deal’s a deal. Get up and be ready in twenty minutes.”

Mads waited in the kitchen while Jesper reluctantly readied himself for a day at the workshop. Laney had already gone to work. Before she left, she’d asked Mads to be gentle with Jeppe. “He’s a nice kid,” she said as she pulled on her cashmere gloves. “He just needs a little more guidance than he gets at home.”

When Jesper finally emerged from the guest room, Mads nodded at him and said, “Let’s go. We’ll get your breakfast on the way.”

Before the boy could protest, Mads handed him his coat and scarf. He grinned at the boy’s muttered protests, but didn’t answer or give in. By 8:50, they were on their way to the workshop.

He was a fast learner. Once Mads showed him the right way to sand the wood, Jesper took over. He asked questions when he didn’t understand. Mads had given up trying to speak Danish with him. The teenager didn’t understand and stared at him blankly. They resorted instead to English or Swedish or a mix of the two. His workshop mates joked about his intern and Mads shrugged and said, “Yeah, but I’ve got help and you’re on your own.”

At noon, they took a lunch break. Mads and Jesper walked to the café where he’d first seen Laney. Jesper veered for the window seat, just as Mads always did. When they had their cups of coffee and sandwiches, Mads asked him if he was ready to call his father.

Jesper shook his head. “He’s just going to yell.”

“He already yelled at Laney,” Mads countered. He didn’t raise his voice. “She doesn’t need the added stress. She’s already got enough going on at work and she’s pregnant.”

“He called?”

“Last night.” Mads took a sip of his coffee. “You need to explain what happened. He was pretty upset you came to us.”

“He just…I don’t think he notices anything that happens to me,” Jesper muttered. He ducked his head and his dark curls blurred his eyes. “Sometimes I think he forgets I am around. Laney never did that. Even when she was upset with me, she always looked out for me.”

“She loves you, she always will.”

“I thought she left my dad because of me…and Siri, my sister. Laney probably told you about her.”

Mads nodded. “I heard about her. Met her once…by accident.”

“She’s not so nice…Siri, I mean. She’s kind of a bitch.”

“You shouldn’t say that though…”

Jesper shrugged. “It’s true. She doesn’t care about anyone else. I don’t think she likes me very much either.”

For a while, neither spoke. They stared out the window and watched a stream of cars go by. Jesper was the first to break the silence. “Do you have a good relationship with your dad?”

“No. He’s got…problems.” Mads rubbed his mouth. ” My dad’s an alcoholic. He left me and my mother when I was a kid.”

“Oh…wow. Like Laney.”

“Her father wasn’t an addict though.” Mads said.

“No, but he left her.” Jesper furrowed his eyebrows. “My dad…he never left, but he’s never really there.”

“You should talk to him. Tell him how you feel.”

“I don’t think it’ll matter,” Jesper said despondently. “He’s good at fixing other people’s problems. Not his own.”

“But you still have a father.” Mads reminded him. “And he was worried enough about you to call last night. You have someone who cares about you. He might be shit at showing it to you, but he cares enough to look for you, to worry. I never had that. Laney never had that either.”

Mads pushed his phone towards Jepser. “Call him.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I buy a ticket and send you home tonight.”

Jesper grinned at Mads. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

Mads nodded. “I would. I’d want someone to do the same for my kid.”