Page 59 of The Apparent Trap

He puts his hand on her shoulder. “I said the right word, but let’s not pretend I said it properly.” They all laugh, genuine, embodying the coziness of the bakery.

The way he makes everyone at ease, laughing, cracking a smile—I’m surprised I didn’t see before that it’s honed. His natural ability to bring people to him was sharpened over the years like a knife, a survival skill rather than an innate gift. It’s effortful even if genuine. He had to learn how to build homes, to have places to belong to, and this was the way he burrowed in. I wonder if maybe getting used to that has allowed him to share so much of himself on television shows or in restaurants. But the mistake is in assuming someone who’s affable was just born that way.

Even in an afternoon without light, everything about Lee is suddenly bathed in a new color.

I have to snap out of watching him, though. I’ve got a job to do.

We spend the next few hours filming Lee and Carmen learning how to make mjukkaka—it’s a flatbread that’s common in northern Sweden made with rye flour, and it has its own medieval-looking rolling pin with spikes. Carmen asks questions while Lee gives culinary context and Signe leads them both. We have dough swap-outs so we don’t have to wait for it to rise, and we cook the bread in her brick oven.

Before this week, Lee and Carmen have never been in work mode side by side, obviously, other than that one quick Thanksgiving shot. But it’s incredible to watch them here in this more confined space. I don’t think I’ve noticed how similar they are to each other before this moment. Genetics really are wild, because in a nurture-versus-nature debate, they’re like a test case for nature. Some pieces of this I knew already, even if I’d never watched it on a camera monitor—Carmen’s dimples are the same as Lee’s, which you would notice from a mile away. But other parts are only noticeable when you see them together. Their mannerisms are eerily alike. They both bounce on their toes in the same excitable way. They cock their head to the side in the same way when they’re listening. The way their brains take information in and then push questions out seems to be so incredibly similar.

It would be funny if it wasn’t all so complicated.

When we’re done and we’ve gotten all the backup footage we need—hands kneading dough again, slower and closer versions of rolling it out, pulling apart warm bread to see the steam—I stand back and watch the way Lee and Carmen are smiling at each other. For all the reasons why she didn’t want to be put on the spot with him on a live television show, this scenario has been wholly different. She trusted me to make it work, but they’re the ones making it work all on their own. They’ve had two days out of the studio, experiencing something new together. And their pleasure at having done it with the other is evident across their faces.

It makes some of this headache feel worth it. It makes some of the guilt of undermining her dissipate, because this actually matters. A fling of a relationship isn’t as important as a relationship with your father—hers or mine.

Signe insists we stay for dinner, even though we all expected to head back to the hotel. I feel a little bad about leaving my dad alone after we’ve been gone all day. But before I can even express the thought, Carmen’s leaning over in my direction.

“Mark won’t mind, I’ll just text him and let him know. It seems to really matter to Signe.”

I nod in agreement, even as I try to ignore whatever feels weird in the pit of my stomach about the whole situation.

It’s hard to feel upset for too long, though, because Signe serves us a traditional Swedish beef stew called kalops—with another homemade mushroom soup in case anyone was a vegetarian—and everyone sighs contentedly. We all sop up the stew with her exquisite bread, and Lee and Hilde spend longer talking about pickling beets than I ever thought possible.

I try not to look at him throughout dinner, instead mostly joining a conversation with Amir and Simon about the footage we’ve shot and how we want to organize it.

But I can’t help but sneak peeks. After the beet conversation, I hear him, Signe, Hilde, and the others from the bakery laughing over his increasingly absurd pronunciation of mjukkaka. He plays it up the more everyone enjoys it.

It’s impossible not to let these moments intercut with everything I learned last night. This is how he’s survived; this is how he’s found his rhythm. He doesn’t need my pity about the past. But I’m seeing him in front of a new lens. And it’s hard not to want to laugh along with them at the little fragments of joy Lee injects into every new interaction.

Once we’ve all been plied with more food than we probably should’ve eaten, we walk out. Lee hugs everyone, while Carmen and I shake their hands. The day has been an unequivocal success.

By the time we arrive back at the hotel, we’re all that perfect mix of exhausted contentedness from a job well done. It was a day that sparked the kind of creativity and learning that made all of us go into this difficult but addictive business.

We walk back into the lodge and see my dad sitting next to the fire in the cozy entrance living room area.

“Well look at this crew!” he says, bouncing up from his leather chair. He kisses Carmen first, and I’m surprised by its perfunctoriness, in how they assume it can be casual because there are so many more yet to come.

“I’ll see you later in the room, I’m wiped,” she says, kissing him back.

I don’t have time to dwell on that because he’s already on me, giving me a typical bear hug that instantly envelops me in comfort. The piney aftershave he’s used my whole life is like a tranquilizer dart to my nerves. Nothing weird that’s happening otherwise can ever take that feeling away when I hug my dad.

“What did you get up to all day?” I ask.

“Ah, I spent the morning grading papers. The schedule worked out well since I don’t have class to teach until after we all get back—so I didn’t need to rush home to New York, even though I wasn’t needed for filming today—but I did have a pile of pompous undergrads to put in their place.” He chuckles, his sweetheart demeanor hilariously different from the battering I know he gives to subpar essays. “And then I spent part of the afternoon befriending the hotel naturalist. He’s really seeing so much of how climate change is affecting the insects up close, and I was incredibly intrigued.”

“As anyone would be,” Amir says.

My dad doesn’t pick up on the affectionate joke. “Quite right!”

“I didn’t see you this morning,” I ask, remembering. “You weren’t up for breakfast.”

He furrows his brows. “Yes, I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night. I don’t know if it’s the cold or some latent jet lag, but I was really tossing and turning.”

“Are you tired today? Why didn’t you just go to bed early?” He’s in such good health, I never really worry about him, but now it has me wondering.

He just shakes his head, like a puppy dog barreling through. “Nah, I’m energized from being here,” he says with a satisfied smile.