Page 37 of Just For Her

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Kayla said after a moment of silence. “Has it been worth it? Dealing with that woman?”

A sigh accompanied Tove’s next few words. “I suppose so. I’ve never wanted anything. People in my family can be two-faced, but if I was struggling, they came through for me. Mostly because I have the right last name.”

“How’s your mom doing? I was under the impression she was alive?”

“Yes, she is…” Tove grabbed the back of her neck as if the added pressure on her muscles would make the tightness in her chest feel better. “She lives in a nursing home in Eugene. The best care I could get near here at the time. I’ve thought about moving her to Bend now that we have more choices, but she’s quite comfortable at her current home. It’s best to not mess with her care too much. Her perception of reality has changed over the years. The doctors have been saying ‘It’s only a matter of time’ for over a decade.”

“Wow. I had… I had no idea.” Kayla put down her fork. “She’s how you’re related to the family, right? Not your father?”

Tove couldn’t look at her girlfriend, as if she still felt that quiet shame that permeated her veins since she was a child. “My mother never married. I was the result of a one-night stand. It always put a stamp on us for as long as I could remember.” In a way that the rest of the family expected from “one ofthoseFredrikssons.” Tove knew things were different now, but the way she and her mother were treated up until the 21stcentury had affected how she interacted with the world beyond Bend. “My mother never regretted having me, but she always made it clear what our place in the family was.”

While Tove embraced the birds chirping above her head and the conversations chattering around them, Kayla opened up as well. “I was raised by a single mom too. Both me and my brother, although when she died, my brother took care of me through high school. Luckily, he was an adult by then. I don’t know what would have happened to me otherwise.”

Tove was taken aback by that candid confession. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Can I ask how she died?”

“Complications from multiple sclerosis. She was diagnosed when I was little. Had a major stroke when I was in middle school. She was only in her forties, too. I thought it was normal, you know… to have a mom who got sick so much when she was in her forties. I found out later that it’s not normal at all. My brother got to see even more of it. A lot of it started happening a couple of years after I was born and our father stepped out. Nobody ever said it, but I internalized the idea that it was somehow my fault. Some people could be really mean about it. They said that it was just as well that I was probably going to get it too.”

“Get what?”

“MS.”

“I didn’t know it was genetic.”

“They don’t think it directly is, but you’re also more likely to get it if your mom or sister has it. Explain that to me.” Kayla shrugged. “It was hard when she died. She worked so much every week but there was never anything left over, especially when she died. So my brother and I have always been working too. I used to get out of school and head straight to my shift at Taco Bell. I’d get home at nine on a school night and barely have time to shower and do some homework before I crashed and started it all over again the next day. Spent my days off sleeping and watching TV.”

Tove took the last of the cider since Kayla still was only halfway through her glass. “I’m guessing all of that work went toward your housing, not saving up for college or the future.”

“Ha! Maybe you get it.” Kayla smiled for the first time in a while, yet it was not a look Tove had seen before. Before that day, she hadn’t noticed how big some of Kayla’s back teeth were. Had she never smiled this widely before? In front of Tove, anyway? “We downgraded from a three-bedroom to a two-bedroom after Mom died, but prices were already going up in the Portland area. Everything I made went to utilities and food. My brother covered the rent since he could work full-time. Then I needed my own car when the bus routes changed and I couldn’t go straight to work as easily… ah, well. You know how it is. Lifestyle creep isn’t only basking in luxuries as you make some more money. It’s shit getting more expensive and your neighborhood making you car-dependent or whatever. That’s one thing I liked about moving down here. There’s no pretense that anything here is affordable. Rent is high. You need a car. Groceries are as local as you can get, but everything else costs money. Don’t get me started on eggs!”

“It didn’t always used to be this way. I still remember when people made fun of me for being from here. WhenIwas growing up, the only people around here who had money were my family and a few select others. Land was cheap and houses cheaper. A lot of my local friends I met through school events had houses worth barely a hundred thousand, and that was back in the 2000s. It’s not like today at all. I barely noticed it happening at first. Rumbles from the townsfolk about all these people moving in and driving up prices, seemingly overnight.” Tove exaggerated since it was some of her shrewder family members cashing in on the influx of transplants who decided Bend was the hot new place to gentrify.“You’ll love it here!”She could still hear June saying that into her cell phone while having lunch with her family CPA.“The great outdoors at your fingertips. Great weather year-round. Nobody really bothers you, and there’s a new wine bar coming soon. Did you hear we might be getting a Trader Joe’s?”

There certainly was a Trader Joe’s now. Tove may or may not have shopped there as much as she perused the aisles at Grocery Outlet and WinCo.

“Yeah, I heard about that.” Kayla leaned back, taking in the decadent sights of the West County Country Club. “I bet this place has been around a while.”

“I think I’ve mentioned before that it used to be a lot smaller. This is the original building and golf course, but dues were a lot lower, and it’s only in the past decade they’ve expanded to the property next door.”

“Business is good, yeah?”

“I specialize in high-income and investment taxes, so you could say that. I have to prioritize slots for the family though. Keeps me in their good graces.”

“Is it difficult, navigating your family and what they want from you?”

That question took Tove aback. “It’s all I’ve ever known.”

They were soon swarmed by Thomas and his wife, both of whom hung off one another as if they couldn’t deal with the thought of ever being apart again. That was also part of Tove’s plan to keep the attention off her while she “debuted” her new girlfriend to the family in a public place. Yet it came with a side of entertaining Polly, who could run her mouth a mile a minute.

Luckily for Tove, Kayla knew exactly how to handle such people.

Chapter 11

Kaylacouldhardlycountthe ways she was pleasantly overwhelmed by the family-owned country club. When she first told Chrissy that Tove was bringing her, she was warned that it could be “stuffy and boring,” but Kayla found that far from the truth. From the moment she stepped out of Tove’s car and beheld the expansive green grounds that stretched from the front gate to the hills beyond, she was in awe of the immaculate landscaping – and the staggering view of Mt. Bachelor that made it look like it was only a few miles away. Of course, this was far from the truth. Kayla’s old views used to make it look like Mt. Hood was in her backyard.

But that was simply the first impression. Then there was the polite but assertive way the staff attended to her and Tove, especially when they recognized the older woman as a direct descendent of the OG Hans Fredriksson who came from Sweden and started this whole thing.Hans Fredriksson. Sounds like a heartthrob from an ‘80s movie.A picture of him hung up in the club’s front hall. The stoic Scandinavian with a straight and healthy mustache looked off into the distance of his black and white portrait, a pocket watch draping elegantly from his front pocket. The plaque said,“Hans Fredriksson, founder of Fredriksson Lumber and the father of Gustav Fredriksson.”It wasn’t the first time Kayla had heard of Gustav, the golden son of Hans and the one who took the mill to the prime it continued to enjoy to this day. Or so Kayla assumed. She had no idea if any of these people still worked or simply lived on the residuals of their glory days.

The food was scrumptious. The drinks were… well, they were fresh. Blackberry cider was not at the top of Kayla’s tastes, but she went along with whatever Tove wanted to eat and drink. It kept things simple.It keeps her liking me.

That was the most important thing.

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