Changes

Chapter 3

Chapter 3It was the first of many lunches over the next few weeks. Sigrid became my new lunch partner, which raised eyebrows with Mary and Jane but it did put paid to their little revolt. If the longest serving staff member had made friends with Sigrid then the world could go on. Our lunches soon morphed into Friday night shopping trips at K-mart in Boronia or Knox City. On some of the hotter evenings we’d go back to my place and change into bikinis and duck over the road to the pool. A friend once asked if that was where it started and I had to say no. I mean she had a beautiful body but I never had the urge to touch her in that way. What started it off was when she invited me to meet her parents.

“It’s just dinner, nothing special, probably leftovers, they want to meet my friend,” she draped a towel around her shoulders as we crossed the road after a Thursday night dip in the pool.

I said yes without thinking but that Saturday night dinner date sent me into a tailspin when I tried to find an outfit and eventually I rang Melanie.

“She’s invited me meet her parents.”

“I see,” Melanie replied, “and you’re calling me because?”

“I don’t know what to wear.”

“So what would you wear if I invited you to dinner?”

“Something casual, a top and jeans or a skirt.”

“There’s your answer, go with the flow.”

Go with the flow.

I eventually settled on a cream shirt and jeans, smart but casual. Sigrid ran a casual eye over my outfit when she stepped out of the car.

“What? Is something wrong?”

“No,” she pulled a wry grin, “you look nice.”

“So do you,” I glanced at the white, checked shirt and buttoned denim midi skirt, “very Western. I have a belt that might go with that skirt, wait there.”

The belt was black with a large brass buckle and Sigrid admired it as she fastened it.

“I bought it at the flea market.”

“Melanie told me about the flea market,” she grinned, “we must go one Sunday.”

“Maybe tomorrow? You’re staying at my place tonight anyway.”

“It’s a date,” she squeezed my arm, “come on, babe, we have to stop by the bottle shop and pick up some wine.”

Ingrid and Jens Fønsmark lived in a five bedroom house in Wantirna and my first impression was that they thought Sigrid and I were an item despite Sigrid’s reassurances on the way. Ingrid greeted me with a hug and a kiss, Jens with a kiss on the cheek and a handshake.

“It is good to meet Sigrid’s hygge.”

“Hygge?” I glanced at Sigrid, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Danish.”

“It’s hard to translate into English,” Ingrid replied, “but it means taking pleasure from simple everyday rituals like a cup of coffee, dinner or in Sigrid’s case, spending time with you. I think the closest English translations would be happiness, cosiness, comfort or security but there are other words too.”

“Oh,” I smiled, “I think I get it. How do you spell it?”

“H-Y-G-G-E,” Sigrid smiled, “hygge.”

“My God, how do you get hue-gah out of that?”

“You have to live it in here,” Jens touched his belly, “it is when you don’t have to be somewhere yesterday.”

“Give me more of that,” I sighed.

Hygge became a word used often after that and if I was honest about it, I found hygge with the entire Fønsmark family and by then I’d met all the Fønsmark girls. Yet at first, I was only dimly aware my feelings were changing. There was one instance not long after that when Sigrid rested a hand on my knee whilst I was driving back from her Elke’s house in Ringwood.

“Sorry, I forgot,” she moved her hand.

The next occasion came about completely by accident when we were driving away from Agnetha’s home after a night in front of the television.

Sigrid yawned and stretched.

“I’m buggered, I can’t wait to get home and climb into bed.”

It was an innocent statement but almost identical to what one of my ex boyfriends had said more than once and I was startled to realise I’d actually agreed.

“I mean separate beds,” Sigrid patted my leg briefly.

“I know,” I blushed.

Our houses both had other bedrooms and by that stage we had become used to sleepovers, usually at the weekends but sometimes we’d sleep over on a Friday night if we were both working on a Saturday morning. She took Cathy’s old room, which had been slightly rearranged and I took the second bedroom in her home in Olinda. I preferred her one because it was nestled amongst the trees and had a beautiful verandah out the front and a paved pergola out the back. A couple of times we invited Melanie and her family over for a Sunday barbecue, but I only got to meet her husband once, the rest of the time it was just Melanie and her children. More of that later but suffice it to say, spending time out in Olinda was a very necessary part of my healing process.

The relationship between mum and I by that stage was well and truly over, she’d actually written me a very cold letter telling me that I was now a child of Satan. Sigrid was devastated by that letter but I simply ignored it because by then I’d found new parents. Ingrid and Jens. They knew of the letter I’ve since been told but said nothing about it. I did notice they reached out much more after I got the last letter from mum.

The honeymoon came to an end one night after we ducked out to the cinemas at Croydon to see a movie, it was City of Angels and because the cinema was just down the road from my house it was only logical she stay at my house.

After the movie we ducked around the corner for a coffee at the pizza shop and Sigrid’s attention was briefly diverted to two women sitting at a table near the back.

“Those two are together,” she murmured.

I turned around to look at the women. One was much older and kind of stocky but the other was slim and definitely prettier.

“How can you tell?”

“They were holding hands.”

“Oh,” I digested this information in silence.

After the coffee we went back home, nothing more had been said about the two women and as I slipped beneath the duvet I heard the toilet flushing followed by running water and then she came down the hall to my room. I turned to the door as it opened and she stepped inside, she was yawning but came to a dead stop as she saw me.

“f**k,” she ran a hand through her hair, “sorry, I had a blonde moment there.”

I was propped on my elbow and she looked past me for a moment.

“It’s all right,” I offered.

“Sorry,” she backed out and left the room.

I fell back into the pillow and stared at the poster on the wall just opposite me, wondering what would have happened if I just pulled the duvet aside and let her sleep with me. It’s what I would have done with a straight girlfriend but definitely not a lesbian girlfriend.