Gudrun started whining, and Anette picked her up and got out the stroller. They often took her on a morning walk, so she could rest a little before day care. Anette put on a fleece and decided to leave her phone and its unanswered message behind and just be in the moment with her daughter. But on her way out the door she tucked it into her pocket after all. Wherever her appetite had gone, it had taken her self-discipline with it.

They only made it two hundred yards down the street before Gudrun was sound asleep, but Anette kept pushing the stroller along Greve Strand’s network of paths. She needed the fresh air.

Svend had been so sweet yesterday, warm and passionate, lovingly attentive and so fucking grateful that they were finally having sex again that Anette’s cheeks burned with shame. If only she could just pull out a big eraser and remove Mads from her consciousness.

Mads.

Anette put the brakes on the stroller and sat down on a park bench. The old pack of cigarettes was still in her chest pocket. She took it out and lit one. The first hits made her light-headed.

He was sensitive and kind, but so was Svend. Strong and masculine, even willful. Was that what she found so exciting? That Mads didn’t need anyone, including her? Maybe at the age of forty-six she had finally gotten caught up in that lonesome-cowboy syndrome that many women cultivated, but that she herself had never fallen sway to before. Something about him left her feeling giddy.

She took out her phone, typed a response, and then deleted it for the twenty-fifth time. Felt the anticipation take off and soar inside her until even her toes were trembling. She typed again and sent the message before she could stop herself.

Should we meet up?

Then she put the phone back in her pocket and inhaled to the beat of her pounding heart. She listened for the blackbird, checked on her daughter, who was still asleep, and put out the cigarette before it made her feel sick.

Could it be his artistic side? Was she really that easy, that a man with a workshop and some stuffed birds made such an impression on her?

Because mysterious? Because deep?

Anette got up, unlocked the brakes, and pushed the stroller down the path. The first joggers of the morning had started zigzagging through the neighborhood dressed in loud colors and breathing heavily. Their focused faces contrasted her own sense of being in the midst of a free fall.

The phone buzzed in her pocket. She stopped, took a deep breath, and got it out.

I’ll pick you up at the dock in two hours. Okay?

A single sentence followed by a one-word question. Even so, she felt his desire radiating through the screen like waves from a reactor. With trembling fingers, she wrote Jeppe that she was going to be late.