Scandi-love

The clawfoot tub easily fit both of their mottled red bodies in its cast iron mold. Frozen capillaries engorged as carefully warmed water steamed and slopped against their chilblains. They had just walked, arm in arm, for three miles in the Norwegian winter. They wandered, talked, and laughed, fueled and warmed by their curiosity. Sun had set hours before their stroll, but that hadn’t kept them in the hjem. It was the eve of a new year; there were intentions to be set, things to be said, and others to be felt.

“Is there something unresolved between us?” The inquiry floated from her mouth to the ears of the other, more aloft and untouchable than the falling snow. She followed the path of each flake for as long as she could through the bathroom window, avoiding her question and gaze.

“Yes, but it’s not our fault.” She finally responded.

“I didn’t say it was?” Her inflection posed a question, but she knew it was annoyance. Her accent sometimes confused the delivery but never the intent. She didn’t need to be told she had said the wrong thing; her message was received.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that you had.” At that moment, awareness struck of the great chasm fixed between them. Lysfjord, Hardangerfjord, and Sognefjord could combine, and it wouldn’t come near the distance she now felt from her.

“The spring pasqueflower and purple mountain saxifrage bloom in the drifts and graupel of early April,” she would dream.