Page 80 of The Happiness Blueprint
I’m just about to fall asleep when the sound of feet reaches me.
“Hey,” Saga stands in the door opening. I’ve slept in the office on a mattress so that she could have her old room back.
“Can’t sleep?” I ask her.
“I was wondering if you wanted to move the mattress into my room.”
“Worried about the shadows?”
“Nonsense. It’s not very often I have my sister under the same roof, and it feels silly to put a wall between us now that I do. It’s my last night here.”
I smile and hop up from the floor, starting to drag the mattress behind me on the floor while she collects the pillow and duvet for me.
“Maybe it’s a little bit because of the shadows. There is one that looks like Piers Morgan.”
“Wow, thatisscary.”
Inside the main house, with the mattress next to Saga’s bed, I pull my duvet up over my chin, needing my whole body to be covered to be able to sleep. The sheets are worn, washed so many times that they are thin and light and soft from fabric softener. Mine have flowers on them, and Saga’s set is covered in small princess crowns.
“Having a sick dad is hard,” I whisper into the dark.
“Being a mother is hard,” she replies in another whisper.
“Running a construction company is hard.”
“Being married is hard.”
“Being hopelessly in love is hard.”
“Being thirty is hard.”
“Being twenty-six is hard.”
“Being ahumanis bloody hard.”
“I always thought of us as shoes.”
“Shoes?”
“You know, you the glossy heel and me the dirty sneaker.” She breaks the whisper with a laugh now.
“Klara, I’m a bloody Birkenstock or a worn bathroom slipper stolen from a hotel and long past its heyday. The only thing that’s glossy about me is my oily forehead.”
“Saga, you were right about me being able to handle Sweden. I’m not saying you should have forced me to come, but I am saying that I was able to handle it, and that perhaps you seeing my potential wasn’t an entirely bad thing.”
“I love you, Klara.”
“Love you too.”
ALEX
Personal Calendar
• NEW TASK:Give ring back to Dan. Wasn’t even mine to start with.Done
• NEW TASK:Sell car—don’t need it. Don’t actually want a high-end car.Done
• NEW TASK:Get over Klara Nilsson. Not fucking done at all
