Chapter 20: A New Beginning and a Wrong Turn

December 1979, Stockholm, Sweden

The door to the room opened. Karin came in wearing her nightgown. She shut the door and climbed back into bed with me.

“Karin?”

“Yes, Steve?”

“Did we?”

“Yes, we did,” she said, sounding very happy.

“Oh my God!” I gasped. “I thought you were Birgit! I’m so sorry!”

“It’s fine. It is what Birgit wanted. It’s what you wanted. It’s what I wanted.”

“You were a virgin!” I protested. “Oh, God, Karin, I took your virginity!”

“No, Steve. I gave it to you. Willingly. Purposefully. For you. For her.”

“But why?”

“You needed her. I WAS her. Now you can move on with your life.”

“That’s what you said last night. That was you.”

“It was us. Both of us. Birgit and me.”

“Did we, well, you know, uhm, I don’t even know the word for it in Swedish!”

She giggled, “Yes. Oh my God, it was amazing. All of it. I mean that. She wanted it all. I wanted it all. For her. For you.”

“If this was for her and for me, what about you?” I asked.

“If we decide it’s right, then it will be for you and me. But not now; not today.”

“What about your parents!”

“What about them? If I’m happy, they’ll be fine.”

“How can you be happy with this?”

“Because I could be her for you. It made me happy to be her for you. This time.”

“So, what do we do now?” I asked.

“Well,” she said, laughing softly, “I suggest you take a shower and then we have breakfast. You have a train to catch.”

“I meant about us!”

“That’s not for today,” she said. “I told you that. Go back to Göteborg. Figure it out. I’ll be here for you. Always and forever. Now, go get your shower.”

Karin went to her room, and I went and showered and came back to my room to dress and finish packing. I walked out to breakfast, a bit concerned about what Lars and Annika might say. Did they even know? Karin was already at the table with her mom and dad. I said “good morning” and sat down.

“What do you have planned for Christmas break?” Lars asked.

“I’m going with Anders and Patrick to Berlin. Anders has a medical conference and I have a chance to see Berlin while he’s in his meetings.”

“That’s wonderful! Sounds like a lot of fun. What are you doing for your Spring holiday?”

“Anders and Eva are talking about a ski trip to Austria.”

“That would be grand. Do you ski?”

“No. But I’ll learn!”

He chuckled, “Yes, I guess you will have to. Now tell me, did you enjoy your time in Stockholm?”

“I did, very much. Thanks for your hospitality.”

“You’re always welcome to come back anytime. I hope you can come back to see us before you leave, perhaps in the Summer, even if only for a few days.”

“I’d love to,” I said. “School is out the first week of June and we have to be in Abisko for a week towards the end of June, but I should be able to work it out.”

“Fantastic. We hope we can see you then.”

“Yes, we’d love to see you,” Annika said.

“Yes, I’d love to see you!” Karin declared happily.

Lars shook his head and Annika rolled her eyes. I felt relieved. Apparently I had worried for nothing.

We finished breakfast and after cleaning up, Annika served coffee and we talked for another hour or so before we went down to the car for the drive to the station.

At the station, Lars shook my hand and wished me a safe trip. I was surprised when Annika pulled me into a tight embrace and even more surprised when she kissed me softly on the lips. She broke the kiss and put her mouth to my ear and whispered, “Thank you for all you’ve been to our daughters, to Birgit, and to Karin.”

After Annika released me, Karin gave me a fierce hug, her body pressed tightly to mine. She kissed me softly, her lips parting, and we exchanged a very soft kiss, our tongues dancing slowly. She broke the kiss and whispered, “That was for us, Steve.”

The emotion expressed in that one kiss blew me away and left me stunned. I hated to let her go, but I had no choice as the conductor gave the final call for boarding. I took my bag and stepped onto the train. I found my seat and saw Lars, Annika, and Karin standing arm in arm as the train pulled out of the station. I watched them disappear as the train rounded a curve, thinking about everything that had happened.

December 1979, Stockholm and Göteborg, Sweden

Sitting on the train back to Göteborg, I stared out the window at the Swedish countryside. I thought about what had happened in Stockholm between Karin and me. Actually, that wasn’t quite accurate — what had happened between Birgit and Karin and me. There was no doubt in my mind that Birgit had somehow been there with us.

I tried to wrap my head around what it all meant. Was there something between Karin and me, or was she truly only a surrogate for Birgit? Our single act of lovemaking could be explained as the fulfillment of my relationship with Birgit, with Karin offering herself as a conduit for me to make love with Birgit one last time. Doing it again would have a completely different meaning. We hadn’t talked about us because it wasn’t about us. At least, it had not been, not until that kiss at the station.

That was the foremost question in my mind. Was there an ‘us’? The kiss, when it was no longer about Birgit, had rocked me back and left me stunned. My struggle was whether there SHOULD even be an us? Could I ever see her as someone separate from Birgit? What did she think of me? Was her act of love purely an expression of Birgit’s love, as Karin understood it? Had Birgit spoken to Karin as she had spoken to me? Did Karin feel the same presence? Would that presence be there if I ever made love with Karin again? Karin didn’t seem to think so!

As the train rolled on, I contemplated three things that had been said by Birgit/Karin — “You can move on now,” “If we decide it’s right,” and “Go figure it out.” Strangely, I knew that I could move on. The spiritual experience the night before was the bookend — Birgit, and I had made love in my bed to start our relationship and we had made love in her bed, through Karin, to end my grief. Today truly was, as the 60s saying went, ‘the first day of the rest of my life’.

Karin had told me to go figure it out. She knew I was conflicted about what had happened and she was right to send me away with just that kiss. Anything more and there would be no way for her to know who I was with in my heart — her or her sister. The Andersson girls were pretty damn smart about relationships. Karin knew that I needed to be away from her to decide what I wanted to do, or rather, what I should do.

The statement “If we decide it’s right” was so complex that I wasn’t really sure where to begin. I had asked myself if I could separate Karin and Birgit. Until I knew for sure, no other question mattered. Only time would tell. For once, distance in a relationship was good — it would keep us from falling into something that could rip both our hearts out.

Whatever we decided, I’d be going home and it would be a long time before I could come back or she could come to the States, if that even happened. I would be back in the same situation I had been with Birgit — a promise for the future, not a present reality. Was that kind of relationship fair to Karin at fourteen? In the end, that would have to be her decision. I’d decide what I wanted and what I needed and tell her honestly. She’d have to do the same, and we’d both have to look out for ourselves.

And that was what Jennifer had been trying to tell me. That I had to look after myself. I’d been doing quite a bit of that here already. I had Pia and Sofia as support, but they weren’t Jennifer or Stephanie, and were more sounding boards for my own thoughts than close advisors. At the moment, I didn’t have a close advisor, and I realized that except for the Annie situation, I’d actually done a pretty decent job of managing my life.

Even with Annie, I’d simply taken the bull by the horns and been completely honest. If I’d done that with Becky, I’d never have been on the emotional roller-coaster that had crashed spectacularly in September. Rather than try to avoid hurting Annie, I had simply told her how I felt. The alternative would have been a bigger disaster for both of us in the long run. Recognizing such situations was important to my mental and emotional health, and to figuring out who I should be with.

I closed my eyes and napped, waking only when the train pulled into Göteborg.

December 1979, Hovås & Göteborg, Sweden

The first thing of note when I returned was that Anders’ mother had moved into the house for the Winter. She was staying in the guest room as planned. I didn’t think it would really make much difference in my life because she’d only be at the house for about four months. I wondered if somehow her influence would change Anders’ drinking, but I doubted that would happen.

On Thursday morning, I was happy to be back at the ice rink to resume skating. I’d felt a bit out of sorts, not exercising in Stockholm, but it didn’t seem to have hurt my skating. I was getting better at skating fast down the rink then turning and skating backwards at speed like a defenseman would in ice hockey. That was still my one trick.

At Kat’s urging, I tried a ‘Waltz Jump’ and thought I was going to break my ankle when I landed badly and spilled across the ice, crashing into the boards. Kat found it amusing, of course.

“Steve,” Johanna said with a slight smile, “let’s stick to ice hockey moves, it’s a lot safer!”

“Steve, just because my partner is cute doesn’t mean you should do what she says,” Mikael chuckled from the bench where he was sitting.

I just shook my head. He was right, of course, she had basically flirted me into trying something that had nearly been disastrous. I picked myself up and skated laps for exercise because I’d finished the practice that Johanna had assigned. When Kat finished her practice, we skated off the ice together and the four of us had our usual hot chocolate. Kat was flirting as usual, but I pretty much ignored it. Mikael just rolled his eyes. I let Johanna know that I’d be away over Christmas break and back at the rink after the New Year.

After skating, I headed to school. I was no longer in the Swedish for Immigrants course, so I had a more or less normal schedule. Now that I was in a regular Swedish class, I had my first assignment, reading «Onda Sagor» by Pär Lagerkvist. It was a collection of ‘evil’ fairy tales. I quickly discovered that fluency didn’t mean what I had thought it meant. I had serious difficulty with Swedish metaphors, double-entendres, and other literary devices.

I also noticed that on those occasions when I did speak English, I was using British English phrasing and, despite my teasing with Elizabeth, British words for things. Of course, this led to Elizabeth giving me a hard time after English class when I would say things like “Volvo are announcing a new car” which was proper in Britain and “Volvo is announcing a new car” which was more typical in the US. She especially gave me grief when I used “lift” instead of “elevator”.

That night, I saw Sofia for the first time in a week and we had a good chat. She said she thought I was in a much better mood, and I passed it off as finally having closure with Birgit, and more or less coming to grips with Becky having an abortion. Of course, that wasn’t all of it, but I wasn’t prepared to discuss what actually happened in Stockholm with anyone just yet.

However, I did need to tell Jennifer and Stephanie about it. Not out of any sense of guilt or concern, but so they knew what was going on in my life. On Saturday after skating, I called Jennifer.

“How was Stockholm?” she asked.

“Interesting. I got to meet the King of Sweden and went to the Nobel Prize ceremony, plus hung out with the Anderssons.”

“Cool. Did you see Birgit?”

“Yeah, and that’s what I need to tell you about.”

“What happened?”

“You won’t believe it.”

“At this point, with you,” Jennifer said, laughing softly, “I’ll believe just about anything!”

“Nah, this one is over the top, even for me. Heck, it’s over the top for Melanie.”

“What the hell happened?”

“Birgit and I made love.”

“She’s dead Steve! Oh, you mean like in a dream.”

“Sort of. I thought I was dreaming. But I wasn’t. I had sex with Birgit through Karin. And Karin was not only OK with it, she wanted it that way.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Sex with Birgit through Karin?”

“Jennifer, just hear me out,” I said. “Karin and I talked a lot, and I poured out my heart and my problems to her. She saw what an emotional wreck I was and offered to cuddle me. I was so spent, I fell asleep almost immediately. I had this vivid dream of making love with Birgit, and we did everything.”

“Everything?”

“Yes, oral, vaginal, and anal. When I woke up, I was alone, but when I pulled down the covers, I saw blood on the sheet. It was Karin’s blood, Jennifer. She made love to me, and I called her Birgit the entire time. And she was fine with that.”

“You took her virginity thinking she was Birgit? Oh my God!”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. But she was not only fine with it; she said that’s what she had wanted. To help me finally get past Birgit’s death. To do that one thing I could never do — make love with Birgit in her own bed.”

“But the anal? That was just a dream, right?”

“No, Jennifer, I got all of Karin’s cherries, well, kind of, I guess. It was her, but it wasn’t her. And that was by her own wishes. She was a surrogate Birgit for me. You, of all people, should understand that!”

She was silent for a moment and then said, “Stephanie.”

“Yes,” I said. “Like that, only different.”

“So, are you and Karin together now?” she asked after a pause.

“No, not at all. That was Birgit. According to Karin, if we do it again, it’s for us. But that one was not for us.”

“If?”

“Yeah. If. Who knows? I might see her before I come home, but whether or not we have sex is a question for which I don’t have an answer.”

“Did you feel a connection?” Jennifer asked with apprehension in her voice.

“Of course I did. With Birgit, though, not with Karin. The sex was white hot in intensity, but that was me and Birgit. The only kiss I got from Karin as Karin was when I got on the train. It blew me away because of the intensity of the emotion, but I was still more or less seeing her as Birgit at that point, so I can’t read too much into it.”

“So you might come home and I might have to compete with a dream girl in Stockholm again?”

“Jennifer, my feelings for you haven’t changed. In fact, I’m in a much better place than I was when I left, believe it or not. I have one girlfriend here, Pia. Other than what was a one-time thing in Stockholm, that’s all there is. I’ve more or less fallen into a situation similar to what Joyce wanted me to — find one girl and stick to her for the year. Sure, there were detours, but those were short-lived and never to be repeated.

“I broke it off with Freda and Petra. Sofia broke it off with me because she wasn’t interested in sharing. Annie was a one-time mistake. Pam was a dalliance at the beginning of the year and might be at the end of the year in Abisko, but really, I don’t care one way or the other. And I’m not even really looking for any prospects. There are a couple of girls who flirt with me, but one of them is too young and the other one is a good friend.”

“Wow, Steve. You went to Sweden and are having less sex than you did at home and with fewer girls! Amazing. Nobody will believe it!”

“It is amusing, isn’t it? I’ve had sex with five Swedish girls, two of them only once, and right now it’s looking as if that might be it. Obviously, things could change, but at this point I’ve had sex in the sauna only once, there have been no threesomes, no tying up anyone; and except for the mystical experience in Stockholm, just plain lovemaking. And you know what, Jennifer? I’m OK with that right now.”

“And when you come home?”

“You’ll be there. That changes everything!” I chuckled.

“It does! I think these last six months have been very good for you.”