Saturday, December 21, 2021
Mom was in the kitchen when I walked down. She was surprised to see me.
“I didn’t hear you get in,” she said, “let me make you a sandwich.”
I didn’t want to tell her that she hadn’t heard me get in because I had snuck in in the middle of the night. I had the keys, and it was my room and my stuff … but it was still their home.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked.
“He’s in his office. Liking stuff, I think,” Mom said. “Sofie’s still sleeping, in case you’re wondering. (I wasn’t).
She was right. Dad was sitting in a massive office chair with his back to the door, the glimmer of the screen creating a halo around his head. I got a little closer and saw that he was scrolling the page frantically. Then he clicked on a link and landed on another Facebook page.
“Hi, Dad. What’s up?” I asked as innocently as possible.
“Don’t look! Last minute Xmas shopping here,” he said and switched to another tab. It was also Facebook.
“I didn’t know you were on Facebook,” I said.
“I did send you a friend request but you never accepted it. I assumed you thought it was uncool to be friends with your Dad,” he said.
“Oh. I haven’t been on Facebook in a while. Since I moved here, to be honest. I’ve been so busy. You know.”
“I love it. I get all my news from Facebook these days, it’s almost better than TV. But I still watch old episodes of Murder, She Wrote, of course,” he went on with a chuckle.
“Like what?” I asked him.
“Well,” he began and looked around himself suspiciously as if his study might be wiretapped. “Apparently, somebody found a moonshine still in the woods.”
“Yours?”
“No, I swear. But would you like it? 60 euro! Btw, I heard that they won’t let kids sing Christmas carols at school anymore.”
“Bee, tee, double-u?”
“By the way.”
“I know. But … anyway, I’m sure that’s not true. Who’s they?”
“You know.”
I didn’t want to get into an argument with Dad so I didn’t say anything. But I also didn’t want him to get the last word.
“It’s not like you’ve ever sung or even listened to Christmas carols, so what does it matter?”
“But the children. They get brainwashed. Anyway, you wouldn’t believe the deals I find here.” Dad didn’t want to get into an argument, either. “Need a snow blower?”
I told him I liked shovelling snow, grabbed Mom’s sandwich and hurried back home. It was nine o’clock, Sara would be up and Einstein eager to go for a walk. Both predictions came true when I walked through the door.
“Where have you been?” Sara asked me through gritted teeth.
“I left a note. I had to do a thing. With Twis… Mikke,” I lied, not knowing why I did that.
“You got up in the middle of night to go chat with a buddy in America? What could possibly be so important?”
“Well, he needed some help with something and you know, the time difference. I got a great idea on my way back.”
“Of course you did. That’s what you do. That’s Peter Eksell in a nutshell. All about wild ideas,” Sara said.
I didn’t say anything. I took the leash and got ready to go for a walk with Einstein.
“What is it?” Sara shouted from the kitchen. “The idea?”
I leapt into the kitchen, eager to tell her my idea. Or, one half of it, the other half was a secret plan that didn’t involve her.
“Let’s do a Christmas movie marathon. Starting today. Four days, four movies. Christmas Eve matinee. You know, not everybody celebrates Christmas,” I said.
“Where do we get the reels?”
“We have a couple in the storage. And then we have Die Hard,” I said and looked the other way.
“Die Hard? I thought you said ‘a Christmas movie marathon.’”
That was an argument we had had every Christmas since our first one together. I was never going to change her mind about Die Hard – and I wasn’t going to change mine.
“Just as a backup. I think we have four movies in the storage. Four that work.”
“Fine. But no Die Hard!”
“Unless we absolutely have to,” I said and ran out with Einstein. With Christmas Eve only three days away, I had no time to lose. I needed to get to work with the secret part of my plan and for that, I needed Jennifer’s help.
➡️ More on Someday Jennifer (HarperCollins Canada 2019)