They Booked Four Seats Without Me, So I Booked One to California novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Four Seats
From a hospital bed Hanne watches her brother post a trip for four, applies to transfer and texts her aunt. At home in the dark her father tells her to save the electricity. Her father then warns her not to act before they return.
My brother posted our family's trip itinerary at nine that morning, and it had four names on it.
Mine was not one of them.
I read it from a hospital bed with my left ankle in a plastic boot and my coat still on.
He had put it up for all two hundred of his followers.
Four plane seats east. One family suite. A tasting-menu dinner with three stars, for four.
Under it, a cousin had written: "Have the best time, all four of you!"
Other cousins had added hearts.
Nobody had asked where the fifth person was.
I had slipped on the ice outside the coffee shop at six, running to finish my shift so I could be back before the car left for the airport.
I had thought the car was waiting for me.
The nurse wrapped the boot and told me to stay off it for a week.
Then my phone rang, and it was Mom.
"The doctor says it's only a sprain," she said. "Why are you being so careless, Hanne?"
"I was trying to get home before you left."
"We planned this trip months ago. We can't change the tickets now. If you can't make it, you can't blame us for not waiting."
She said it in the voice she used for her staff.
I looked at the post again.
The tickets had been bought in September.
Dad had bought them, for four, before I ever had a shift to rush.
"Okay," I said.
"Good. Be sensible. Linnea's waiting, I have to go."
She hung up.
I sat there with the boot propped on a hospital chair and my thumb on the glowing screen.
I had asked my father for a hundred dollars for a lab fee two months ago, and he had said, "Where am I supposed to find that? Your brother is enough to worry about. Can't you make things easier for me for once?"
Erik's last summer camp had cost a thousand dollars, and Dad had paid it that same afternoon.
Linnea had wanted doll clothes, and Mom had taken a week off to sew them.
I had wanted a coat that fit me.
Mine was Erik's old one, with the sleeves rolled up twice.
Gran died when I was twelve, and Dad said everything she left went into the roof.
I never saw a dollar of it.
I never thought to ask.
I opened my messages.
My aunt Ingrid had texted me every Sunday for six years, from California, and I had answered with one line each time.
Her last message said: "The offer stands. It always will."
I had never answered that one.
Now I typed with the boot jammed against the chair leg.
"Aunt Ingrid. Is it still okay if I come live with you?"
I opened the community college portal next.
There was a transfer form to a California school for the spring term.
I had started it in October and never pressed submit.
I filled in the last box, checked every line twice, and pressed it.
So I stepped out.
My phone buzzed before I had put it down.
"Hanne. YES. Don't move. I'll start the paperwork right now. Can you hold on for five days? I'll come get you myself."
I read it three times.
Nobody had ever been in a hurry to get me.
I limped home at dusk on crutches the hospital had loaned me.
The house was dark when I got there.
Everyone else had gone to the airport at nine, so the lights were off.
My ankle throbbed all the way up my shin.
My phone buzzed in my hand.
The family group chat had a new message from Dad, sent from the gate.
"Did you make it home? Do you need to rest for the next few days?"
I felt something loosen in my chest, and I was already typing yes when a second message came in.
"Don't turn on any lights. It's a waste of electricity for one person."
Then a third.
"We've already spent a lot on this trip. Be sensible."
Then a fourth, from Mom.
"We'll bring you back a souvenir."
I stood in the front hall with my coat dripping on the floor.
I wanted to ask them why they couldn't just take me too.
I was their child as well.
I typed it, deleted it, and typed it again.
In the end I sent: "Okay."
The truth was that I had always known what they would say.
Dad would say, "Make things easier for me."
Mom would say, "Be sensible."
There was never any room left over for me.
I climbed the stairs in the dark.
There are four rooms on the second floor, and Erik and Linnea each have one.
Mine is the attic, up a pull-down ladder, under a window the size of a pizza box.
I lay down with my boot sticking over the end of the bed and my phone held up to the window light.
My aunt had written again.
"Five days. I mean it, Hanne. Do not let anyone talk you out of this."
Before I could answer, one more message from Dad arrived.
"Ingrid called me. I don't know what she's told you. Don't do anything until we're back."
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