His Whole Family Was in on Our Fake Relationship, Except Him novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Cabin Four
The Moen family overacts surprise at the lodge and gives the couple the one cabin with one bed, then Whitney walks into the rehearsal dinner.
Solveig Moen had a plate of lefse ready before we reached the front door of the lodge.
It was nine o'clock Thursday night, and the great room smelled like wood smoke and butter.
A stone fireplace took up one wall, and the whole Moen family was standing in front of it in a line.
Isak's mother held the plate with both hands.
She was round-faced and short, in a green sweater vest, and her eyes were already wet.
"You brought someone," she said.
"Mom, this is Roz," Isak said.
"Roz Tennant," Kari said from the end of the line, and put both hands over her mouth.
She was five-foot-six and sturdy, and she had the worst poker face in Minnesota.
"Roz? Our Roz? From my college? You two?"
"We've been seeing each other since August," Isak said.
He said it.
"Since August!" Leif said, much too loud.
Leif was six-foot-three, with a rust-colored beard, and he had never once lied successfully.
"Six weeks, and no Sunday supper? Wow! Incredible! Nobody told us a thing!"
"Hush, Leif," Solveig said. "They're private."
She put the plate in my hands and hugged me over it.
She smelled like vanilla, and she held on a second longer than a stranger would.
"Thank you for coming," she said into my shoulder.
I looked over her head at Isak.
He was watching his brother with a small frown.
It was the frown of a man doing arithmetic.
"Leif's tired," he said.
"Leif's always tired," Kari said, and took my arm. "Come on, I'll show you your cabin."
Cabin Four sat at the end of a gravel path with a porch light on.
Kari walked us to the door and said the lodge was full this weekend and that this was the last one left.
She said it a little too fast.
Then she said goodnight and hugged me, and whispered, "You're a saint," into my hair, and left.
Isak opened the door and turned on the lamp.
It was a log cabin with a woodstove, a small table and two chairs.
There was one bed.
It was a queen, with a blue-and-white quilt turned back.
Someone had left a basket of rolled lefse and a handwritten card on the pillow.
The card said, in his mother's round hand, Sleep well, you two!
Isak read it twice.
"There were supposed to be two beds," he said.
"Rule three," I said.
"Rule three," he said, with relief, and took a sleeping bag out of his garment bag.
I didn't know people could pack a sleeping bag in a garment bag.
He laid it on the floor beside the stove with his shoes lined up at the head.
Then he sat on the edge of it, looked at his socks, and said, "We should have the story straight by morning."
"The story where we've been seeing each other since August."
"I said August without thinking," he said. "I should have checked a calendar."
"I met you in August," I said. "At the bridal shower. You carried in the cake."
"I did carry in the cake."
"And you said, 'This is heavier than it looks.'"
"That's true. It was."
"And I said, 'So am I.'"
He looked up at me.
It was the first time all night that his face had moved.
"That isn't what happened," he said.
"It's what happens next time somebody asks."
He almost smiled.
I turned out the lamp and got into bed with my boots off and my jeans on.
I lay there for a while listening to the woodstove tick.
"Roz," he said from the floor.
"Yeah."
"Thank you for not making it strange."
I stared at the ceiling.
I had known for twenty days that this plan was not his.
None of those days had felt as heavy as this night.
"Good night, Isak," I said.
The next evening the Moen family held the rehearsal dinner in the lodge dining room, at one long table by the windows.
The lake behind the glass was going black.
Isak sat beside me with his hand wrapped around mine, because Rule One said where people could see.
His thumb moved once over my knuckles when he thought nobody was watching.
At six-forty the dining room door opened.
A couple in their sixties came in first, stamping rain off their coats.
Behind them came a woman in a pale-pink wool coat, with honey-blond hair.
A man in a navy blazer walked behind her with a hand on her back.
Isak's hand went cold in mine.
"That's her," he said quietly.
The woman looked down the table, and her eyes found him, and stayed.
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