Janne Drangsholt - The Marvelous Misadventures of Ingrid Winter

“Yes.”

“How much was it?”

“What?”

“Your last offer?”

“Eight million two.”

There was silence.

“ We bought the house?”

“Congratulations?”

“You’re kidding me now, right, Ingrid?”

“No.”

He hung up, and I started to cry.

Two minutes later he called back.

“I had to step out. What in the world have you done?”

“I don’t know? I got caught up in the excitement.”

“Do you know what this means?”

“I—”

“It means we have zero money for repairs, zero money for whatever unforeseen expenses there might be, zero money for vacations, and that we’re going to have to think long and hard the next time the kids need winter coats or skis or bikes. Have you heard of living beyond your means?”

“Yes?”

“That’s what we’re going to be doing now!”

“Don’t yell.”

“I’ll yell if I WANT to!”

“OK.”

There was silence.

“I have to go,” he finally said. “We’re starting again in five minutes. You call the bank and explain what you did.”

“Couldn’t you—”

“No.”

“I’ll call them. I’m sorry.”

There was more silence.

“To be or not to be?” I tried.

“Don’t even.”

I sat there all day staring at my computer screen without understanding any of what was on there. I went to the real estate site once and looked at the page for the house. A little yellow note in the corner now said “SOLD.”

I gulped, and the tears crept out of the corners of my eyes.

At the same time there was a small part of me that couldn’t help feeling happy as I looked at the pictures. This was all ours now. Even if we had to live off oatmeal and charity, we were the ones who got to have the yard, the “children’s wing,” and the attic.

I didn’t want to think about how all of this commotion had probably also awakened Tehom.

The main thing was that this was a home, our home, where we would grow old and keep our dentures, each in our own glass. It was marvelous.

It was after six when Bjørnar’s car finally pulled into the driveway. The two older kids were using their iPads, while Alva was watching cartoons. I was waiting for him when he walked in the door, but when he saw me, he looked down and waved me away with his hand.

“I’m tired,” he said. “I’m not up to talking about this now.”

“We don’t need to.”

“But what were you thinking?”

“I don’t know. There were so many numbers, and it all happened so fast. I was trying to take notes. And then I tried to do a few calculations on my own…”

He shook his head, but didn’t say anything.

“I had the thought that we might be able to call the second runners-up and see if they were interested in taking over at their final offer price,” I said. “Then we could just make up the difference?”

“Yeah, we might have to do that. I’ll have to do some calculations, but I’m beat right now.”

“But maybe we could keep it? That would probably be best.”

“ You’re probably not actually qualified to evaluate what the best course of action would be.”

“No… Did everything go all right in court?”

“I had a little trouble concentrating after lunch. What were you thinking?”

“I…”

“We agreed, right? Didn’t we agree?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want someone else to be living in our house! You know? Well, at least not Ms. Shabby Chic. I bet she drives an Audi. Or the ‘children’s wing’ people.”

I made my airhead face and added air quotes.

He sighed.

“Do you want a glass of wine?”

“We can’t afford wine anymore.”

“But we already bought it.”

“OK, sure, but let’s wait until after the kids go to bed. Right now I want to eat and take a shower. And be alone for a little while.”

I thought about saying that you couldn’t be alone in this house and that was really part of the problem, but instead I went into the living room where the kids were. Later I noticed that Bjørnar had his math calculations out at the kitchen table, and when we were sitting on the sofa just over an hour later, each with a glass of wine, he gave me a look that showed he was wondering if I might be a little dim, mentally.

“I don’t get what you were thinking,” he repeated.

“No. What are we going to do?”

“First and foremost we’re not going to let you be responsible for anything .”

I looked away.

“And I can not cut back after all.”

“What do you mean? At work? Had you been thinking about cutting back your hours at work?”

“I’m just saying that now I can’t, whether I want to or not.”

“Should we call Ms. Shabby Chic?”

“We’ll keep it for one year and see how it goes. And then we can try to sell again if we find that it’s too expensive. And hopefully the market doesn’t change too much during that time.”

I tried to laugh, but all that came out was a small croak.

“But you’re going to need to do all the work when it comes to selling this house: the real estate agent, the appraiser, the staging photos, packing, cleaning. Everything. From now on this is your project. I’m going to have to work as much as I possibly can if we’re going to be able to afford this. It didn’t occur to you that we were going to have to pay for the agent or the closing costs or the title transfer fee, either, did it?”

I shrank and opened my mouth, but he kept talking.

“If you’re going to apologize, you can forget it. Just let me know when you’ve sold this house. That’s what I want. And next time, you could stick to the plan we agreed to.”

“But we did agree to make an offer.”

“For almost a million kroner less than the one you ended up making.”

“Luckily I almost never buy new underwear.”

“What?”

“The underwear I’m wearing today, I bought it when we were on that BritRail trip fifteen years ago. I saved us some money there, anyway.”

“You know, that’s not even funny. You’ve almost bankrupted us. Do you get that?”

I nodded and took a gulp of my wine. It was a little hard to swallow.

“I’m going to bed. I’m exhausted.”

“I’m going to bed, too,” I said. “Just so you know.”

I took a few good swigs from my glass and tried not to listen to the sound of rumbling from the Deep.

Bjørnar looked up from the paper with an expression that showed he didn’t understand what I was talking about.

“We have to tell the kids we bought a new house,” I repeated.

“Oh, yeah, that ,” he said tiredly. “Be my guest.”

But when they looked at me, their faces were way too full of anticipation, as if they expected to hear that we were going to Legoland or they would be getting their own iPhones.

“Your father and I are getting a divorce,” I finally said.

I didn’t really know what I was thinking. At any rate I never thought they would take me seriously. It was supposed to be kind of a warm-up joke. I mean, it was totally unlikely that we were going to get a divorce, even with my almost bankrupting us. But when I saw Ebba’s and Jenny’s faces, I realized it had been the wrong thing to say. It was totally wrong.

“What?” exclaimed Ebba, and I could see a faint quiver in her lower lip.

“You’re getting a divorce?” Jenny said slowly.

“Are you completely nuts?” Bjørnar asked.

I tried to laugh, but croaking was still the best I could do.

“We are not getting a divorce,” Bjørnar explained. “What your insane mother is trying to tell you is that she spent absolutely all our money, along with quite a bit of money we don’t have, buying that house we went to look at last weekend. So we can’t get divorced, because we can’t afford it. We’re going to move, all of us together. In just a few months.”