Reach
-And Isak's mother and sister said that they would be happy to host them for some time if it can help. They are leaving as soon as Stefan will be able to travel.
Lalli now had the answer as to why he had been served his meal on the house after visiting the Hunter's Lodge due to starting to miss the food. Part of him still had trouble believing Milla was being that nice while expecting nothing in return. Lalli spoke:
-Is it okay if I know where they are going?
When Milla named the town, he recognized it as part of the address he was currently supposed to use to send Onni, Tuuri, Cecilia or Reynir mail. An idea shaped in his mind and he was the first surprised to have it.
-My family is currently working there. Will there be space for an extra person in the means of transportation that will be used?
-Actually, I think Isak might be grateful for a second person who's not straight out of the clinic. I wanted to go there too, but I seem to be the only person here that anybody trusts to manage the consequences of Stefan being absent.
One of said consequences was a large sign that was currently supported by Stefan's usual stool, the stool for customers who didn't mind having their discussion with him in public and the bar. Its contents explained that Stefan was currently recovering from an accident and that nobody working in the establishment had any obligation to replace him for any given job. The sign must have been there for close to two weeks, yet someone who expected just that to happen had shown up, then been firmly asked to leave by Milla while Lalli was having his meal. One of Stefan's "looking back" worries about leaving town with Leif had been leaving his regulars behind. Part of Lalli's mind felt there was something dumb in the fact that it happened without him having chosen it, when he could have prepared at least a little if he had done it by choice. Lalli reminded himself that expecting people to have known that unforeseeable events would happen in advance was one of the things that annoyed him when others did it. Another part of him knew that Göte had a bigger share of responsibility for the situation than he'd ever admit to. One of Lalli's brief visits to Stefan had confirmed what he had suspected about Leif's reasons for jumping off the bridge. If what Lalli had overheard over the past days from the servants and while going into town was to be relied on, Stefan and himself were part of a select few who understood the situation enough to not be putting most of the blame of what had happened on Leif. He had already heard at least a couple people suspect Leif of having deliberately jumped to create exactly the situation in which he currently was, with no consideration for the fact that if the act had been planned, failure could have either killed him or left him entirely dependent on someone who wasn't Stefan. On the way to the Lodge, Lalli had heard someone suggesting it had actually been Stefan's fault, somehow. While he would miss Stefan's lunchtime stories, he and Leif should definitely spend some time away from the town if there was a place outside of it that would have them.
A question for Milla came to Lalli's mind:
-You and the rest of your family didn't help Leif before. Why are you doing it now?
-Stefan told me he told you about the arrangement he considered last year. Right after he gave up, he was even more convinced that he is now that his expectations for the aftermath of running off with Leif made him just as bad as Göte. And to be completely honest, at the time, that conviction had more of a basis in reality, though my input wasn't enough to compensate for the extent to which Göte had inflated things. Stefan's well-being was much more important to us than Leif's was, so this is what we focused on. It was impossible to keep that focus from passively being at Leif's expense at least to some extent. The recent change means that at least for now, both their well-beings can be taken care of at the same time. If you'll accept some advice, next time a similar question comes to your mind, remember your own reasons for the extent to which you felt willing – or able, whichever one applies – to do something about Leif's situation.
Milla next brought he face closer to Lalli's and spoke a quietly as she could all while being heard over the background noise:
-And just so you don't get completely blindsided when we start telling more people, a certain something that has been happening for a few months is soon going to result in me not being able to escape Göte's attention as much as I used to.
Lalli wondered what Milla was talking about and she refused to elaborate before going back to both the position and the tone of voice she had been using for the rest of the conversation. Lalli's thoughts drifted to what little he knew of Milla's life and if he knew any element of it to be just a few months old. The only thing he could think of was her relationship with Isak. By the time he was done with his meal, he got an idea and thought very hard of something he could buy at the general store. More cake ingredients sounded like a good plan, considering the quantities that he had recently been using. This turned out to be perfect for giving him time to confirm his suspicion. He remembered what Stefan had once told him and wondered if he knew. If it wasn't the case, he hoped Milla planned to tell him before he and Leif left town.
On the way back to the house, Lalli realized that he was being followed. There were plenty of people who had a good reason to be on that path at the same time as him and going in the same direction, but he was quite sure Leif's older brother wasn't one of them. Fortunately, he was in enough shape to sprint to the house almost from the town's exit. Seagulls approached the brother when he got close enough to the house. Lalli went inside, put his purchases on the table intended for food that needed to be taken to the pantry by whoever happened to be making their way there and went to one of the ground floor's windows to open and get the brother's attention. Doing so was safer than talking to him while they were still both outside:
-Why were you following me?
-I want to be part of that trip on which what's-his-name is going to take Leif. Everyone else I talk to either refuses to talk with me or tells me that I'm one of the people who shouldn't come along for Leif to truly benefit from the trip. The last three years were supposed to be him living outside of the family home for a while to get better. It clearly failed.
-I'm here to spend time away from someone who treated me like you treat Leif. I'm not telling you where they are going.
Lalli remembered the last time he had interacted with the man and decided that he had done more than enough by answering a single question. He closed the window, but stayed near it to see if he actually left on his own or if the old man would have to employ that small group of seagulls to force him to leave. He heard Leif's brother shouting:
-Hey, seagull man, can you hear me? You're harboring a man-bedder right now!
Lalli heard the old man respond from his own window:
-Yes, I am aware. But we don't consider that alone to be a reason to stop treating people as proper human beings around here. If you are bemused by anything I just said, take time to think of it and you might be able to be a better brother by the time Leif returns from his trip. Now, unless you have a reason to stay that I may agree with, this is your last chance to leave my property before the seagulls make you do so.
Leif's brother made the choice of leaving on his own. Soon after, a servant came to Lalli, telling him the old man wanted to know if he wished to have dinner in his room that evening. The old man had insisted upon having his company for dinner ever since his arrival, so Lalli found the offer odd, but accepted it. By the time dinnertime actually arrived, he had figured out what Leif's brother had been trying to do by drawing the old man's attention to Lalli's interest in other men and realized what could have happened if the old man had been anything like Leif's family. He was grateful to not be currently expected to interact with other people.
xxxx
A few days later, having decided to see Emil on an occasion other than the latter's lunch breaks at least once more before the trip, Lalli was having dinner alone with him in a smaller dining room to avoid any interference from the old man or the children. The conversation, mostly carried by Emil, somehow moved to the fact that he had once worked in Göte's store:
-By the way, if you've ever seen me get annoyed at the store's clerk short-changing me, that's why. If Göte considers any significant amount of money he gave to someone wasted, he tries to get it back a few crownbits at a time when they come shopping. Back when I was working there, there was a list of people we were supposed to shortchange at least once every couple of weeks. Some of them were former employees who had quit after staying long enough to get at least one paycheck.
Lalli made note to seek other former employees and ask them if that last part was true. He realized that it might be a relatively good time to bring up a certain topic:
-I saw you leaving the store while yelling at someone about money. It was right before I got Leif's note.
Emil rustled his hair:
-So, you where there. Guess I was too angry about losing that money to notice. Wait, that means you got Leif's note and bumped into me right after seeing that. No wonder you didn't want to talk to me before the note got blown away.
Lalli's attempt to clarify became more of a lecture than he had initially intended, on top of being the first time he managed to put things he had noticed about himself over the past few weeks into words:
-The man before Stefan yelled at me like that a lot. It still scares me, even when it's someone else doing it to someone else and I'm just close enough to hear. My mind doesn't seem to care whether there is a good reason for the yelling or not. When it happens, I stop being able to think well enough to be able to tell whether there is a good reason or not anyway and just want it to stop.
Emil stayed silent for a few moments before answering:
-Thanks for telling me this. What my behavior would look like to people who have been yelled at for no good reason never crossed my mind before now. I assumed not accusing them of deliberately stealing the money for themselves – I know they don't get to keep it – was enough. I'm going to see if I can stop doing this altogether. The only problem I see right now is that I can't let them continue without saying anything. I'm still technically working to pay back money my parents borrowed from the Solbergs, and the fact that I need to use my own money to replace those crownbits was adding up even before I was trying to do something fun with the children once in a while. Though I guess we won't be going to the Lodge for stories any time soon. And as much as I've come to enjoy the kids' company, I do hope they will be back with their parents whenever Stefan and Leif come back to town.
Considering how long his own vacation was lasting, Lalli could guess Stefan and Leif were probably going to stay with Isak's family for at least a few months. Weeks seemed to be going by surprisingly fast ever since he had started working on finding a new partner. He suddenly thought of something about what Emil had just said:
-You don't need money to make the children do fun things. You can start by asking what they want to do and it may turn to be something that is free. Or at least not as expensive as what you think is the best activity.
Emil promptly took notebook out, flipped through it, let out a sigh of relief and started noting something on the blank page:
-For a while, I thought this could have been among your child-rearing advice that I had forgotten. It doesn't seem to be the case.
Lalli glanced at the notebook and realized that noting down advice given by others might be a good idea for himself, as well.
xxxx
Both the children and Emil were sleeping over, which meant that they had a little time before going to bed. Outside of the obvious activity, for which Lalli wasn't in the mood, there was only one thing in Lalli's room that would occupy both of them. It was time to see how well he could hide the chess set's true nature. Fortunately, aside from a comment on how nice the set looked, Emil didn't seem to immediately notice anything odd. Less fortunately, the fact that they were playing also gave Emil time to think. By the time the game was done, he had already made an important connection:
-Both you and Helena disappeared from the party after you got that set. Is there a reason for that you can tell me?
Lalli tried to come up with something, but couldn't. He simply shook his head in hope that it would work and surprisingly enough, it did. It wasn't a time to go talk to Helena anyway. The fact that it was already dark out was one of the reasons they were playing chess in the first place and they were right in the middle of the brothel's opening hours.
-Come to think of it, I can ask her about it myself. I'm not sure why she would even get you involved.
-She's keeping a secret for me in exchange. If she won't tell hers unless she's allowed to tell mine, tell her I'm okay with it.
That night, Emil took a while to fall asleep. He was in the process of doing so when he figured out what the chess set probably was and turned a portable lamp on to see if there was anything that confirmed his suspicion. When he found the engraving under a piece of medical tape, he promptly regretted it and got an idea of what Helena could have needed to discuss with Lalli right after he won the set at the raffle. Emil had long ago figured out that there had been a point where those investments had stopped being "for him" and continued only because his parents still held out the hope of getting back money he no longer wanted. That chess set had been something he had actually wanted at the time. They had sold it before he ever got to see it because they could no longer afford "necessities" that he now knew to be able to live without perfectly fine. In the midst of the emotional turmoil, he realized that if he was going to cry himself to sleep, he might as well do so in the bed that Lalli had let him have because he preferred sleeping on the floor. As he approached the bed, planning to put the portable lamp on the nightstand before blowing it out, he realized that some of the paint on the wall was newer than the rest and that the rug under the bed was a little big to be simply there to accommodate Lalli's sleeping habits. He made a twirl, trying to rebuild an old mental image. As far as he could tell, this was his childhood bedroom. He remembered what he had once done under the assumption he'd never get to see it again, and promptly regretted it more than he already did.