“And I really don’t care.” She kissed him again, enjoying the taste of salt and the feeling of hope. “Is it heavy?”

Svend laughed.

“Everything is heavy if you choose to look at it that way. So I just don’t. You know, like in a cartoon. Gravity doesn’t take effect until you look down.”

“So the trick is not to look down?”

He leaned on his shovel and looked at her for a long time.

“Well, let’s put it this way: At least you get to choose if you want to give in or resist.”

Svend knew her inside and out, saw all her foibles, and understood her doubts. And still he loved her without reservation.

He winked at her affectionately and said, “Go grab a shovel and help me dig!”

“SWEETIE, YOU’RE DREAMING again. It’s morning.” Sara put her arm around her daughter to calm her down. Amina had slept in her double bed for the last three nights.

She, stirred, blinked, and reached for her mother. Sara held her hand and savored having her daughter need her for once.

“Were you having a nightmare, sweetie?”

Her daughter mumbled half-incomprehensibly against Sara’s shoulder. “It was like that mirror that you can walk through, only it was different. I was, like, totally old with droopy cheeks.”

“What are you talking about, silly? What mirror?” She stroked Amina’s arm as she spoke. Her daughter snuggled up to her.

“The one in the book, Through the Looking-Glass. Alice goes through the mirror and then everything is reversed and super spooky, and she can’t get back to herself. I dreamed that that was me.”

Jeppe’s book. Sara took it as a painful confirmation that he had a destabilizing effect on their family.

“You watch so many scary things on YouTube, monsters and horror stuff. How can you possibly be afraid of an old book?”

Amina whimpered. She was so skinny and small, still just a child, even though she occasionally tried to act older.

“Good thing it was only a dream!” Sara kissed her daughter on the forehead and got out of bed. “I’ll make us breakfast. I’m letting Meriem take the day off too, so we’re all going to start our weekend early. But on Monday we’re done with all this playing hooky. I need to get back to work.”

Sara made her way to the little kitchen, turned on the oven, and opened a pack of the good pita bread from the local produce stand. No oatmeal today. Today breakfast would be shakshuka, poached eggs in a spiced tomato sauce, the traditional dish her own mother had always served whenever something extra comforting was called for.