“Not Christy. She and her mother were more like friends. They rarely disagreed on anything.” Apart from that one time, of course, but Elizabeth’s concern had been understandable. Alix had shared it. “And she’s still perfect. I don’t know how she does it all, frankly. She’s a great mother, she manages to make a perfect home, cook from scratch and still work. If you ask me, Seb’s the luckiest guy alive.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Not that I have any experience of perfect, but I would have thought it would be hell to live with.”

“You—What?”

“Where do other people fit into this perfect world? Presumably Seb has to be perfect, too.”

“Now you’re being ridiculous.”

“Am I?” He glanced in the mirror. “You’ve already said that Christy has life planned out. That she wants things to be a certain way.”

“There’s nothing wrong with knowing what you want and going for it.”

“As long as the other person’s goals are aligned and you’re both going the same way. But what if you’re with someone whose goals are different? Who wants their life to be different? What happens to compromise? Also, we all know life never does work out the way you plan it, so what happens then? Sometimes the best things that happen in life come from the unexpected.”

“And sometimes it comes from good planning. Stability and predictability are important for a child.” She should know. She hadn’t had any.

“But such rigid planning can lead to stress when it all goes wrong.”

“Rigid planning means it’s less likely to go wrong.”

He glanced in the mirror. “But this is life, and life goes wrong. It’s a fact. What happens when Christy’s plans get interrupted?”

She gets stressed.

“She handles it. Regroups. Crosses out things on her list, and makes a new one. There’s nothing she can’t cope with.”

“Sounds as if she’s a classic only child.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It can be tough. There are a lot of expectations riding on one person.”

“Maybe, although that wasn’t my experience.” Alix thought about Christy’s upbringing. Piano practice. Homework. Mealtimes. All of it scheduled in. Occasionally Alix had thought it seemed a little exhausting never to have time to simply flop on the bed and do nothing, but mostly she’d envied her the structure and parental interest.

He glanced at her. “You’re an only child?”

“Yes, but I’m probably not typical.” She shifted the subject away from the personal. “The houses are pretty. I love the red color. They look like Santa’s cottage.”

“It’s Falu Rödfärg, or Falun red. First used in the sixteenth century. It contains a mineral by-product of copper mining and acts as a preservative for the wood.”

“You’ve been here before? To this part of Sweden?”

“Many times. I first came here on a college trip. Sweden has some of the best hiking. Have you heard of Allemansrätten? It’s the right to public access, literally the freedom to roam. In Sweden, you are free to explore nature, as long as you don’t do damage. And obviously you’re expected to use common sense. No litter. Respect people’s property and privacy, that kind of thing.”