Next Time Away novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Photo
Alone at her high-risk scan at thirty-five weeks, Tove sees her husband's Christmas photo with his brother's widow at her fireplace, drives home and orders everyone out, and finds ELSIE painted on the nursery door and her baby's crib gone.
The ultrasound tech was measuring my baby's head when my phone lit up on the chair.
I was thirty-five weeks pregnant, and I was alone on that table.
My husband, Soren, had texted me at seven that morning: Work emergency. Go in without me. I'll explain tonight, promise.
My sister-in-law, Dagny, had texted a minute after that: Don't worry about a single thing today. I'll look after the house and Soren.
She had driven me to my last two appointments.
She had knitted the baby's blanket, yellow, because I didn't want to know the color.
I believed every word either of them sent me.
"Your fluid is low," the tech said, and her voice went careful. "The doctor will want to see you before you leave."
I reached for the phone to tell Soren.
Dagny had posted a photo.
Soren stood in front of my fireplace in a green sweater.
Dagny stood on his left, and her daughter, Elsie, stood on his right.
All three of them wore the same green sweater.
Soren's arm was around Dagny's waist.
Three stockings hung on the mantel behind them, and they were my grandmother's stockings.
The names on them were Soren, Dagny and Elsie.
Mine was gone, and so was the one I had sewn for the baby.
The caption said: Our first real Christmas at home. Everyone together at last.
Soren's mother had already commented under it: My whole heart. This is how it should be.
Two hundred people had liked it.
I looked at Soren's smile for a long time, and then I looked at his text again.
Work emergency.
The tech handed me a paper towel for the gel and did not ask what was wrong.
The doctor came in and said the baby was small and the fluid was low.
She said I needed bed rest, no stress, and a recheck in a week.
"Is someone at home with you?" she asked.
"Yes," I said, so she would let me leave.
In the parking garage I sat behind the wheel and did the math.
Soren had not driven since his brother's funeral two years ago.
He said his knee couldn't take the pedals, so I drove us everywhere.
That morning Dagny had offered to take him to work.
His office was twenty minutes south of our house.
The photo had been taken in our living room, in daylight, at ten.
So I drove home.
Dagny's gray van sat in my driveway, one tire on my grandmother's rosebushes.
I let myself in with my key.
Laughter came from the living room.
A photographer was packing a ring light into a case.
Soren's mother sat in my armchair with a mug of my cocoa.
Elsie sat on the rug in her green sweater, trying to tie a ribbon on a stuffed reindeer.
Soren stood at the fireplace with his phone in his hand.
He saw me and every bit of color left his face.
"Tove," he said. "You're supposed to be at the hospital."
"I was at the hospital."
"You're early."
"I was never late."
Dagny crossed the room fast and took both my hands.
"Honey, sit down, you're white as paper," she said. "I told him you'd hate it. I told him to wait for you."
Her hands were warm, and she smelled like my vanilla soap.
"It's just a picture," Soren said. "For my mom. For Elsie. She hasn't had a real Christmas since her father died."
"Tove, dear, you're overwrought," his mother said from my chair. "It's your condition."
I looked at the photographer.
He looked at his case.
"The baby is small," I said. "My fluid is low. The doctor told me no stress."
Nobody said anything.
"Soren," I said. "You told me you had an emergency."
"It was an emergency," he said. "Elsie was so sad this morning."
I took my hands out of Dagny's.
"This house was my grandmother's," I said. "She left it to me. Only me."
"Tove," Soren said.
"Everybody out."
The photographer was gone before I finished the sentence.
Soren's mother stood up slowly and put the mug on the mantel, on my grandmother's lace runner.
"You will apologize to your husband by tonight," she said.
"Take the mug with you."
She picked it up.
Elsie looked up from the rug.
Her front tooth was missing, and her eyes were wet.
"Are you mad at me?"
I lowered myself down to her, one hand on the floor, my belly in the way.
"No, sweetheart," I said. "Not at you."
"We'll go, honey," Dagny said softly. "Come on, Elsie. Boots."
She was crying a little, and she looked at me with her mouth trembling, hurt.
Soren followed them out.
He got into the passenger seat of Dagny's van and buckled his seat belt.
He did not look back at the house.
I went upstairs, holding the rail, to lie down in the nursery.
The door was shut, and a wooden sign hung on it.
ELSIE, in green paint, with a painted snowflake over the I.
The paint had dried a long time ago.
I opened the door.
There was a twin bed against the wall under the window, made up with a quilt I had never seen.
My baby's crib was gone.
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