Chapter 28: As the Hourglass Empties, Part I

May 1980, Hovås/Göteborg, Sweden

Sitting in class on Monday, May 5, it dawned on me that I had just a month of school left, which meant a month left with Katt before she moved to the US. Two weeks after school was out, I’d head to Abisko, north of the Arctic Circle, for a week. I’d visit Stockholm for a few days on my return trip, and then I’d have less than ten days before I had to be in Copenhagen to fly home.

I’d made the arrangements with YFU so that my Abisko return would route me through Stockholm on the way back to Göteborg so I could see Karin, and that my tickets for Copenhagen included a night in Helsingborg so I could be with Pia. I was quite grateful for those extra favors done for me by YFU. I decided that I’d look into volunteering when I got back to the States to try to pay them back at least a little bit.

Rather than paying attention to the math lesson, I was thinking back over the year and all the things that had happened and all the people I had met. The year had been amazing, and I was supremely glad I had decided to do it. But now I was contemplating the end, and that meant going home.

Thoughts of home meant seeing all my friends and my sister. It also meant having to deal once again with my mom. Stephanie seemed to think that she’d treat me the same as she had before, though I had pretty much decided I wasn’t going to stand for it. I was still only seventeen, but after this year, I wasn’t about to let her control me. The only thing I really cared about was her not interfering with my relationship with Stephanie.

In one sense, I hoped mom did come with Dad to pick me up in Detroit. It would provide the perfect opportunity to get everything out on the table. I wasn’t going to hold anything back at all. Her attempt to control me and effectively destroy my year in Sweden had failed miserably, and I was going to tell her just how badly it had failed.

I was sure that she’d try to use driving as a way to control me, but I certainly had enough money to pay for my own driving lessons and to buy my own car. I was sure that I’d also have enough money from Don Joseph to pay for insurance and gas. Of course, I wondered how Don Joseph would take the news about me and Joyce. The notes he’d written me had said nothing, and the card at my birthday had contained a nice Cashier’s Check. I wondered what she might have told him and if she was bringing her new guy to his house for the extended family meals. I decided that I needed to call her and find out what was going on, and make sure that we had our story straight. The last thing I needed was trouble with her grandfather!

Thinking of the Don made me think of two things — the programming work and the request Andreas had made about helping him find girls from Milford High. I really needed to talk to Beth Pater about how things were going — it had been several months since I’d last spoken to her, though her occasional letters seemed to indicate everything was fine. She had told me that she had earned enough from working for Doctor Grossi and from running the computer dating program for four schools to buy her own Apple II, which she’d do once school was out.

The bell rang for the end of the period, snapping me out of my deep thoughts. I made a mental note to call Joyce before I went to bed.

“You were really lost in your thoughts during class,” Helge said as we walked to Swedish class.

“I was just thinking back over the year, as well as thinking about going home.”

“Has it been a good year?” Suzanne Fjällman asked.

“Absolutely! I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I’ve done what I set out to do and I’ve had a lot of fun.”

“Will you write to us when you go home?” she asked.

“Of course. I have everyone’s home address and I’ll write to you if you want.”

“I’d like that! Are you really going to come back in a couple of years for graduation?”

“I’m going to try my best! The money won’t be a problem because I have a good job waiting for me when I get home. It really will only be a matter of timing. That will be around the end of my first year of university, so hopefully final exams will be over early enough for me to make it here in time for graduation.”

“That would be pretty cool!” Helge said.

We sat down in Swedish class and my mind began drifting again, this time to Karin. I was still unsure of exactly what I wanted. I knew that I needed to find out from her what she was thinking. She had said she wanted me long before I had arrived and had made it quite clear that she was interested in some kind of long-term relationship. My concern was that I was not sure yet if I could separate my feelings for Karin from my feelings for Birgit. If I couldn’t do that, then I couldn’t do anything more than talk with Karin without creating a potentially huge problem.

Karin was still fourteen, which meant four years before she graduated from «gymnasiet». That would put me at the end of my junior year of college. Perhaps the best course of action was to simply delay anything until then. That would be the Summer of 1984, and would be two years after my next planned visit. Perhaps a visit then would be when we finally worked things out. The question was, what to do for the next four years? I had no idea, and we’d have to talk it through.

Jennifer was waiting for me at home and our relationship had changed and would change more. All our previous discussions about the future and about commitments had pretty much been washed away by events and by both of us growing up. We’d have a new relationship when I went home and most likely a very different one once Stephanie and I had been together.

When the bell rang, Helge and Suzanne both commented that I was really somewhere else today. I told them I just had my mind on so many things that it was hard to concentrate. Suzanne asked if I’d like to take a walk during free period to clear my head. I told her that was a great idea.

We walked for about an hour, talking about what I planned to do when I went home and what my college plans were. Suzanne told me about her plans as well as her family. Her dad was Swedish and her mom was German, and they had divorced several years ago. She was an only child and lived with her mom.

The more I talked with her, the more I wished I had gotten to know her better earlier in the year. She was one of the quieter and more conservative girls in the class who never went to parties and, as far as I knew, didn’t date. She’d always more or less been on the periphery, helping me with my Swedish, but otherwise not really interacting with me.

“Why didn’t we do this earlier in the year?” I asked.

“Do what?”

“Get to know each other.”

“I tend to be quiet and keep to myself, which I’m sure you noticed. I don’t date because my mom is very conservative and I’ve never really met anyone I’d want to go out with.”

“Your mom sounds like my mom back home. Is that because she’s German?”

“Yeah, she goes to church regularly and has some very different attitudes than Swedish moms usually have. But it’s OK because I’m pretty conservative myself.”

We walked back into the schoolyard just before she had to go to her language class. I had another free period at that point and would go to the computer lab.

“I do hope you’ll write to me,” she said.

“I will. I promise.”

This was an interesting turn of events I wouldn’t have predicted when I arrived at school earlier in the day. It appeared that Suzanne was interested in me, but she was taking things very, very slowly. I found that odd, but then the more I thought about it, her approach probably made a lot of sense — to not get involved seriously with someone who wasn’t going to be around for more than a year.

It looked like I was going to have a few surprise pen pals — Tina Hoff and Suzanne Fjällman, neither of whom I knew very well at all. I’d also certainly be writing to Pia and Karin, as well as Suzana. I’d also do my best to keep in touch with Helge and Torbjörn. I wondered if I’d be able to maintain all of those relationships by mail and the occasional phone call. All I could do was try.

At home that night, I wrote down quite a few of my thoughts from the day in my journal. I had well over a hundred pages from my year abroad to add to the several hundred back home in Jennifer’s care. I did my homework as well, and then read until 10:30pm when I called Joyce.

Connie answered the phone, and I asked for Joyce.

“Steve? How are you?” Connie asked.

“I’m fine, Connie. How are you?”

“Good. You know I’m really sorry about how I treated you before.”

“Thanks. And I’m sorry I was nasty to you.”

“I deserved it, but thanks. Let me get Joyce.”

“Steve!” Joyce exclaimed when she came to the phone.

“Hi, Joyce! You sound happy to hear from me.”

“Yes, and a bit surprised. What’s up?”

“I figured we should talk before I came home.”

“About grandfather, I guess.”

“Yes. I was wondering what you had told him.”

“Actually, nothing so far. I’ve never taken Roy to grandfather’s house.”

“So that’s his name. I don’t think you ever mentioned it in your letters.”

“No, I guess I didn’t. But anyway, I figured that until you came home, I didn’t need to say anything to grandfather. It just made it a lot easier on me.”

“That’s fine. You know we’ll see each other there at some point, right?”

“Of course. I know you need to see grandfather occasionally. But before you do, we need to talk things out.”

“Talk things out? Your letters seemed to imply that you had moved on. Aren’t you and Roy serious?”

“Yes, we are, but you know how I feel about you. That really hasn’t changed. Once you get home and get settled, we’ll get together and talk, hopefully before we see each other at grandfather’s house.”

“That sounds like a good plan. Where are you going to college?”

“University of Cincinnati. I’ve decided I want to teach High School science, so I’ll be working on a degree in chemistry or Biology and getting my teaching certificate.”

“That sounds good. I have to figure out where I’m going, but I’m going to study computer science for sure.”

“Of course you are! That’s what grandfather wants and I know you would never say ‘no’ to anything he wanted you to do.”

I chuckled, “That’s true. Especially after he called me «figlio mio»!”

“You remember what I asked you to do for this year?”

“I do. And I have had a long-term, kind-of long-distance relationship with one girl. She’s not the only one I’ve been with here, but I’ve not been crazy the way I was back home. I’ve made some mistakes and learned from them.”

“So you’ve only been serious with one girl?”

“That was true from July through March. In March, I started seeing a girl closer to me regularly. She’s an ice dancer and I guess the thing to say is that she was lonely and needed me. I spend a lot of time with her, and she’s moving to Colorado to train next month. She’s not someone I’d look for a long-term relationship with. In fact, she’s so committed to her skating that she isn’t even thinking about any kind of relationship with anyone.”

“So, why are you with her?”

“For the same reason, you were with me at first. Remember how needy I was?”

“I do.”

“That’s Katt. I’m playing your role with her. But I’m not falling in love with her like you did with me!”

She laughed softly, “Well, I guess I can’t complain too much then. What about the other girl?”

“Same situation, but in reverse. She provided emotional stability when I needed it after I first arrived in Sweden. That relationship progressed almost identical to yours and mine, though my attitude about long-term relationships has changed a bit, so I’m not looking at her as a potential life partner. I don’t rule it out, but I don’t think she is.”

“What’s changed?”

“A lot. I really can’t talk much longer now, but I’ll call you when I get home and we can get together. I’ll try to do that before I go see Don Joseph. I want to make sure I don’t interfere with you and Roy.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Joyce said. “I’ll take care of making sure we have the time to talk.”

“Thanks. I look forward to seeing you in a couple of months.”

“Me too!”

We said our goodbyes and hung up. I was more than a little surprised at Joyce’s reaction, as well as the fact that she hadn’t told Don Joseph about Roy. The conversation that Joyce and I would have might be much more interesting than I had originally been thinking. I had thought it would simply be tying up loose ends, so to speak, but it looked like the conversation might be quite a bit more than that. But, it was nothing to worry about at the moment.

The rest of the week went by quickly. I was able to focus better in class, but I was still constantly thinking about home, as well as Karin, Katt, and Pia. I did call the Anderbergs on Thursday and made arrangements to see them for dinner and stay at their house on July 9th. I let them know that Pia would be with me. They said that they’d invite Putte and Kathy over as well. Mary was coming home a week later, so I wouldn’t get to see her.

On Friday I went to Katt’s. She and her family were preparing for their move to the US. They were going to rent their house to a family friend and that meant they didn’t have to store or sell all their furniture. Håkan told me that they and Mikael’s parents had rented adjacent townhouses in Boulder, not far from the ice rink where Katt and Mikael would train. They had already arranged for tutors for Katt through the skating federation. Håkan would be flying to the US next week to finalize everything and come back to make the final trip on June 8th.

Katt and I went to sit in her room and cuddle like we usually did — me in the chair and Katt curled up in my lap.

“I’m super excited about moving!” Katt said.

“So you won’t miss Sweden?”

“Maybe a bit, but you know I pretty much only skate and go to school and don’t really have any friends who aren’t skaters, and they aren’t really close.”