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“So, the thing with me brought Mom and Dad together and made them realize they’d lived decades together peacefully, they shared history and kids, and they might not love each other or agree on everything, but they’ve been friends for ages. They rekindled that, and Mom has been worried about me, so she’s been over a lot, fussing on me.”
“Is this good?” he asked.
“Yes. For me. For Dad. Mom. Oskar. Not so good for Emilie.”
Ah.
“I’ve noticed her absence.”
“Well, I hesitate to hark back to that night, but do you remember that phone call about Scott’s apartment?”
“Yes,” he said slowly, after they worked things out, not sure he was prepared to hear more because he was feeling good right now because Elsa was good. He didn’t want to get pissed.
Elsa gave it anyway.
“Okay, so, Mom has been to Scott’s pad, and she definitely noted she liked it. But she didn’t say she wanted to live there. In fact, she’s feeling this new singledom, this new space to find herself. She likes my apartment. She says she feels bohemian, more herself than she has for years. She’s got a job at a law practice as a receptionist. Oskar called in a favor and some friend of his from law school hired her. She loves it. She gets to organize things, and she gets to dress in cute work outfits. It doesn’t pay the moon and stars, but she’ll have a nest egg when the settlement goes through, so she doesn’t need that. Just a little extra to make life better.”
“That’s great, but…” he prompted because he knew there was more.
“But…Scott would need to jump his lease to move in with Emilie, which incurs a fine. He doesn’t want to pay the fine, so he wants to postpone them moving in together or she has to move in with him where he is now. Since he was on a two-year lease, that would mean she had to wait thirteen months or wedge herself into Scott’s space. That didn’t line up with Emilie’s vision of her life as a surgeon’s live-in girlfriend, so behind Mom’s back, she tried to sort it so Mom would take over Scott’s lease with Scott’s landlords none the wiser, with Oskar and me paying for it.”
“And everyone getting together to take care of you, this all came out,” Hale deduced.
“Yes,” she confirmed. “Mom was insulted. Oskar was pissed. Dad was disappointed. And Scott was angry. Plans for them to move in together are on hold. Plans for them to remain together might be on hold too.”
He winced for Emilie, but said, “Can’t say she doesn’t deserve that.”
“I can’t either. Not sure a man would want to jump in with a woman who shows her manipulative side so clearly.”
“Yup.” He squeezed her hand and asked, “And Oskar’s big brother act?”
The expression on her face after he asked that was inscrutable.
Then she explained it.
“He dropped everything and got on the train that Sunday after I’d been hurt. When he arrived, and saw how hurt I actually was…don’t,” she stressed when she saw him react to that. “We’re past that. Yes?”
“Yeah,” he grunted.
“Anyway, he stuck around, and there’s drama afoot with Oskar too, of course. And I didn’t save the best for last, because this is messed up, but it’s the biggest.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s moving back to New York, and Anoushka isn’t coming with him because she’s been keeping in shape not so much with a lot of yoga classes, but instead, fucking her yoga instructor.”
“Holy shit,” Hale muttered.
She shot him a big-eyes look while fighting a smile. “Now, don’t take this as humor. I’m trying not to laugh because hysterical laughter is a better reaction than jumping on the train and telling my soon-to-be, ex-sister-in-law what a piece of garbage I think she is. Anyway, Oskar is taking this opportunity of being here to interview at firms. Fortunately, he’s a shark with a good track record so there are several who are eager to recruit him. He’s going back this weekend to get started on closing down his life there. He’s going to move in with dad while he gets settled with the kids here. He’s tried to recruit Mom as his nanny, and could pay her more than she’s getting, but she’s loving her job so much, she said no. Thus, some things are up in the air for Oskar, but he’s coming back. That’s a definite.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“I think his response to me being hurt and my response to finding out his wife betrayed him made us both look at each other differently. We’re grownups. We were acting like children. We’re acting more like grownups now.”
“Glad for you, baby,” he murmured.
“Me too,” she replied.
“How are the cats?”
