Dear Elsa: Ingrid bought you flowers... Have you ever done something romantic for her?

I’m sorry to say that I haven’t. For a long time I was trying to convince myself that I was simply very fond of her. That I could choose not to fall in love again. That it would be too much of a scandal.

That if I loved Anna the way I did that I couldn’t possibly love Ingrid.



And then, when I finally admitted to Ingrid and to myself that I did, it was only a couple of days until I found myself in Anna’s bed.

“Found myself.” As if I had absent-mindedly made a wrong turn. Anna asked for me, Ingrid gave her blessing of sorts, but I chose to walk into Anna’s rooms, her bedroom, and to…do what I did there.





Although there may have been a moment when my heart snuck past my head. It was many months ago. I was in the library, brushing up on the nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, and Ingrid was attending me. I saw her eyeing the bookshelves.

“Would you like something to read? Please, help yourself.”

“If I may.” Then she smiled shyly and said, “Of course I may. You said so.” She almost skipped over to the bookshelves and started reading titles.



I heard a happy little gasp, and looked up from Hymn To Aphrodite. “Find something?”

“Yes, Her Mother’s Daughter, by Hege Skovgård,” she said. It was a seven-volume novel of adventure and romance. “I used to enjoy reading it.”

“You read all seven volumes?”

“No, only the second and fifth. They were very exciting.”

I set down my book. “Why only those two?”

“Those were the ones we had.” I suppose she saw that I was puzzled. “Mama bought scrapped books for the household. We used the pages to line pie tins, clean windows, and to wipe…and for other purposes. I would take books out of the pile for Anders and me to read. The, um, the selection was limited.” She hugged volume one to her chest and looked around the library. “Not like this.”

She looked adorable. I walked over and kissed her. “You’re going to need a bookmark.” I wore a blue silk ribbon in my hair that day, and I untied it and pressed it into her hand.



“Thank you,” she said, and brushed the ribbon against her cheek. “I’ll make sure to get it back to you when I’m done.”

“Keep it,” I said, and indicated the bookshelves. “You have a lot of books to get through.”





I could’ve given her a slip of paper; that’s what I had been using. But it felt so good to see her that happy, I had to do something special for her. Maybe, despite myself, I was being romantic.

I hope so.

