her that.
She put her arms around me and I breathed in her smell; perfume and something recently fried. Happy Swede-iversary, she said. Look, I made Swedish meatballs to celebrate.
Where’s my boy? I asked, and went to find Conor. He was on the activity mat in the living room, lying on his back, trying to get at the frog that hangs suspended from the green plastic bar. This child. I can’t get enough of him. Eight months and counting. He’s growing by the day, a little evolution at the speed of light; always changing, always in motion.
How’s my champ today, I said, lying down beside him. He smiled at me, the smile that turns my heart on its head: gummy and pink and pure love. I nuzzled my face into his belly, inhaled the smell of talcum powder and diaper cream.
I put the hat on his little head and lifted him up to show Merry. Two blond Viking braids hung down from the hat. Conor grabbed one and put it in his mouth.
Great, Merry laughed, now he’s ready to lead an invasion.
She’s so happy here. Light and happy. Unburdened. I love to see her like this. It’s all I’ve ever wanted for her. For us.
I handed her the baby so I could go and wash up for dinner. She cradled him close, and I paused a minute to frame the scene.
Beautiful, I said again.
We sat down together around Ida’s old oak table, Con in the high chair I built for him, Merry and I across from one another. She’d unpinned her hair, parted it to the side just as I like best. She was wearing a blue blouse that made her gray eyes appear almost translucent, as though they were portals to some other world, or altogether empty behind.
I poured the wine, Merry dished up the food and wiped the rim of the plates where the sauce had spilled. She’d lit candles even though it would still be light out for hours, and set the flowers on the far end of the table.
To Sweden, I toasted.
Merry held up her wine and we clinked our glasses together.
So good, I said, eating a mouthful.
Remember when we met, I laughed, you could hardly make a slice of toast.
It can be hard sometimes to remember that Merry. So much has changed since then.
Another lifetime, Merry said.
Yeah, I agreed. And this one’s a far better fit.
She was radiant, the evening light from outside streaming in, painting her edges in a soft golden glow.
She was trying to feed Conor, but he kept turning his head away.
What have you got for him?
Broccoli, carrot, and chicken, she said.
Lucky guy. I smiled. Let me.
I took the blue plastic spoon from her.
Vrooom, vroooom. He opened his mouth wide and was done in no time.
See? I winked. He just wants you to work a little harder for it.
Later, after Con was asleep in his crib, Merry and I lay out on the lawn and finished the bottle of wine. I pulled her to me and kissed her deeply.
The stars above us blanketed the sky in light. The lavender in the garden floated its scent in the air, a little too overpowering. I could make out Merry’s eyes, watching me, and within them, the edges of my reflection. I lifted her blouse and moved her down beneath me.
Sam, she protested.
Shhh, I said, we’re in the middle of nowhere.
She relaxed under me and shuddered slightly as I pried her open and apart.
Besides, I reminded her, we’re supposed to be trying for another baby.
Yes.
This is the life.
This is exactly how it’s meant to be.
Today my project was jam and baby food. There’s a surplus of produce from the garden and the refrigerator is almost empty of the little pots of food I make for the baby’s meals. Sam and I agreed that he should eat as much organic and homemade food as possible, so we grow most of the vegetables ourselves, and I cook it up and turn it all into puree to bottle and store. It’s not that much more work, really. I suppose nothing is when it comes to your children.
When we arrived last year, everything was wild and overgrown, fifteen years of neglect, of unweeded lawn and trees beset with rot. We pulled down the rotted spruces, heaved out the gnarlrooted bushes and the lawn overrun with chickweed and black grass. We bought books on horticulture and planted rows and rows of seedlings from the nursery. Sam custom-built bricked-in vegetable patches and cold frames for the winter to guard against the frost. There were plagues of snails and fungus, seedlings that refused to sprout, mis-planted produce that we tried and failed to grow in the wrong seasons. Slowly, eventually, we worked out the rhythms of planting and picking, the time it takes to nurture a cabbage, the optimal alkalinity of the soil. We are quite expert now, or at least I am. Like the kitchen, the garden is my domain.
There is no shortage of produce these days. Every morning, I am outside sowing the seeds, removing the weeds, harvesting the vegetables from out of the soil. The smell of earth sits heavy in the air; the smell of something wholesome and good. Back to basics, Sam says. He likes to pretend he can taste the difference; he’ll take a bite of salad and rule it home-grown or market-bought. I usually lie if he guesses wrong. I hate for him to feel silly.
For the baby’s food, I boil the vegetables in pots on the stove, one for carrots, one for broccoli, one for zucchini. I write labels for the jars, as though the baby might be able to read them and choose his own dinner. Sam likes to open the refrigerator and see them all lined up in a row, a little army of food soldiers ready to serve.
Who’s been a busy little wife? he’ll say.
Oh, that would be me, I’ll reply, with a wink. Coy and cute.
I sure am a busy little wife. It is the role I was born for, according to Sam. He cannot get enough of me like this, wifely and domestic and maternal. Perhaps he is right, and I was built for it. I certainly seem to excel at it. A natural, you might say, if you didn’t know how hard I work to pull it all off.
Never mind; it’s worth it, isn’t it? What more could I hope for. What more do I need? The love of a husband, the gift of a child. It is enough – it is everything.
Sometimes this new life makes me feel as though I am living as a quaint eighteenth-century settler wife. Growing things, baking bread, going to the weekly farmer’s market to choose my box of greens: zucchini, kale, celery, whatever I can’t grow in your own garden. Sam marvels at the offerings – the freshness of wild Norwegian salmon, the taste of real farm butter or eggs plucked right out from under a hen.
How did we ever survive in the States? he says.
You’d wonder, I reply.
We
