Chapter 7: Heart-to-Heart

(As a bit of a special gift, there will be two updates for today.)

Karen was still pretty steamed over her father dating again. She was more so when he was now dating Mrs. Oss.

Normally, when her dad found a new girlfriend, she just dealt with it and waited for the inevitable divorce proceedings. But not this time. Not with Josefin.

Thankfully, today was the weekend, so she and Karl had the whole day to spend at home.

And by spend the day at home, that meant they sat and watched TV in their pajamas.

Karen didn't mind Karl. In fact, they got along quite well. Both of them always swapped jokes, and made good company.

Today, though, Karl could sense something was off about Karen's mood. Something not of a laughing matter.
"Who is she?" His question startled Karen. It wasn't that she was surprised he actually spoke, it was the tone in his voice. She was also surprised that he seemed to know almost as much as she did.

"Uh..." Karen swallowed, then tried to find the right words to explain everything to him. "Arvid and Edvin's mom. It's..."

"Waiiit... How'd you even know Dad's seeing a new woman, anyway?" However Karl found out, it had to have been recently.

"I heard you outside earlier, yelling at him." Karen didn't think she had been that loud.

"Well, of course I was yelling! It's a little awkward to find out your dad started dating your boyfriend's mom!"

"Awkward, yes. But maybe Dad really likes her?"

"That's what you said about Kristin's mom. And look what happened." Karl was not as familiar with Lief's track record of failed marriages.

"I mean it this time! Mrs. Oss doesn't seem as flighty as Lara was." Oddly, he neglected to mention his own mother. Karen simply chalked that up to the complicated relationship mother and son had.

"But it's still creepy! What if they get married?"

"So what? They just started dating, right? Even if they do get married, it hopefully won't be for months. So why make a fuss of it now?"

"What makes you think it'd be months?"

"Because even Dad wouldn't up and marry a person he just recently met!" He had been right there. As quick as Lief was to remarry twice before, he would never just up and marry a woman he'd only been dating for a few days.

"So even though the two of them getting married is probably inevitable, why worry about it now? Let Dad be happy, yeah?" ...Sometimes Karl was far smarter than most people gave him credit for.

Either way, Karen made a mental note to talk to her dad when he got back tonight.

(End of Chapter 7.)