A Nordic King(31)

Freja is watching them with a scrunched-up nose that gets more and more exaggerated as the couple continues with their smooching and pet names, while Clara eyes them curiously.

Then Clara looks at me, lips pursed in thought.

“What?” I ask her. “Do you want that mustard paste of yours?”

“Yes,” she says, holding out her hand.

“Yes, please,” I tell her, rummaging through my bag and handing it to her.

“Yes, please and thank you,” she says, taking the paste and squirting some onto her bread and then kindly does the same on Freja’s. “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?”

The lettuce nearly falls out of my mouth. “What?”

“You don’t have a boyfriend,” she repeats. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be an insult but it sure feels like one.

“How do you know?”

“Because you’re always with us.”

That’s true. “I could have a boyfriend.” That I’d meet during my hour or two of free time in the evenings. Lord knows I’ve actually not had a Sunday off yet. I’m supposed to but as Amelie had hinted at, something always comes up.

“But you don’t. Why is that? No boyfriend. No husband.”

“Jeez, Clara,” I tell her, frowning as I munch on my pickle. “Haven’t you ever heard of an independent woman before?”

“No I have not,” she says earnestly. “But the nanny before you, she had a boyfriend. We saw him once. He had candy in his pockets but he was old.”

“Well, I have mustard in my purse, so there. And I’m sure everyone is old compared to you.”

“I’m not old,” Freja says.

“Everyone else, Freja,” I say.

“Did you ever have a boyfriend?” Clara is really pushing the subject. If my mother were still around, I’d say she sounded like her.

“Yeah, did you kiss him?” Freja asks in a low voice, as if she’s daring me to say yes.

“I had a boyfriend in France,” I tell them. “And yes, I kissed him.” Freja looks disgusted. “I kissed him a lot,” I add, for effect. She nearly turns green.

“What was his name?” Clara asks. “Was he nice?”

“His name was Luc and he was very nice,” I tell her. Very French, too. He wasn’t my only boyfriend, either. I’ve had a few but none of them were anything special, just guys to have fun with. When you’re living in certain places for only a year or two, you don’t form any kind of commitments with people. And that’s the way I like it.

“What about in Australia?”

I swallow, staring down at the remains of my sandwich. I decide lying would be easier. “No. No boyfriends. I waited until I was old enough for boys, I waited until I moved to Europe.”

Clara thinks that over, has a bite of her sandwich, then says, “Maybe you’ll get married. One day. To a prince.”

“Or a king,” Freja says excitedly. “Oh, maybe you’ll get married to Papa!”

I’m in the middle of drinking sparkling apple juice when she says this and I completely spit it out in a spray across the table, narrowly missing the girls.

“Wow, that was cool,” Clara says, wiping away some of my juice spit from the table. “You’re like a statue in a juice fountain.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say, frantically grabbing a napkin and wiping my mouth and hand and the table. I’m still trying not to laugh at what Freja proposed.

“Believe me,” I say when I’ve composed myself, “I am not marrying your papa. I’m not marrying anyone. I’m very happy just being me, with you girls.”

“But if you married him, you wouldn’t have to move and you could be with us always.”

“Freja,” Clara says sharply, glaring at her. “Papa isn’t going to marry anyone. Ever. Okay? Mama is our mother, no one else is and no one else will be.”

Oh boy. Now, I have no idea what Aksel’s personal life is and I’m going to assume that if he was wildly in love with his wife, he won’t be moving on from her anytime soon. But if the day does come that he starts to date someone and eventually marry her, well, let’s just hope Clara has some time to come to terms with it.

I wonder what kind of woman Aksel would date. Even though he’s so grumpy and cold and exacting, there might be a side of him I never get to see. Well, there is a side of him that I do see, when he’s with his girls. That’s when the ice melts and he becomes something else.

“I’m done,” Freja says, pushing back her plate. “Can I go look at the pigs?”

I sigh, not ready to get up. “Sure.”

“I’ll go with her. You stay here,” Clara says quickly as she gets out of her seat.

I glance over at the section with the pigs and animals, just beyond the kissing couple. “Okay, but hold her hand and come right back and stay where I can see you.”

“Yes, Miss Aurora,” they chime in unison.

I watch as they go over to the pigpen, but as soon as the kissing couple starts distracting me with their tonsil hockey, I avert my eyes, lest it looks like I’m being a perv, just glancing every now and then as the girls are now chatting up a farmer.

My thoughts go back to Aksel.