Chapter Text
If I had a time machine
And if life was a movie scene
I'd rewind and I'd tell me, "run!"- Ingrid Michaelson, Time Machine
How long were you actually allowed to leave someone on read, before it got rude?
Or more specific how long could she ignore the messages Martha's mom wrote her,
until she had to - at least - pretend to have read them?
I am a busy woman, Regina thought.
Katharina could phone her in her office, if it was an urgent matter.
Oh god, she thought, she actually could.
Would she?
Regina had tried her best to keep a certain distance.
Then, however they had spent a few nights in a row in front of the Waldhotel homepage.
Well, Regina's web presence was flawless now and Katharina had been an essential help.
The chat with Martha's mom now being one of her most frequently used, was a strangely outgrowth of it...
Her finger hoovered above the notification.
“Not now,” she told herself, “I am a busy woman!”
But looking around in her clean kitchen, showed her, that she had as a matter of fact nothing to do.
It was a sunday afternoon.
She buried her phone under the newspapers, her husband and her had read during breakfast, and left the kitchen.
Sorry, I misplaced my phone over the whole weekend,
she constructed the flimsy excuse in her head
“No, I couldn't hear it, it was on silent,” she muttered to herself.
“Did you say something?” Aleksander asked, as she passed the open door of the room he used as a kind of office.
“I talked to myself”
“Are you bored?”
“I had an existential crisis, I am exhausted.”
He got up and leaned against the door frame.
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“It's silly,” she looked at her fingers.
She had repainted her nails, as Katharina's purple had faded.
She liked it, it made her feel cheery and the contrast reminded her of the 80's.
Also she recently grew to love crashing the uptight image people seemed to have of her.
Martha's surprised look had been priceless, the first time she had found out,
that posh Frau Tiedemann, now wore fancy nail polish, which somehow reminded her of the one her own mother had used to wear, too...
Aleksander approached her.
He gently put his hand into her hair and leaned in to kiss her.
“Still silly?” he asked.
Regina smiled lovingly and nodded.
He kissed her again, his lips lingered longer and his hands wandered deeper, messing up her waves.
“How about now?”
“Just one more time.”
He granted her the wish. She closed her eyes and felt herself blushing,
Aleksander stroked with his thumbs over the rosy skin of her cheeks.
“Do you think I'm ungrateful?” she asked and he promptly shook his head.
“Katharina got very friendly towards me, recently,” she tried to explain, as she noticed his confused look.
“She sents a lot of messages. Very nice ones, but I just can't bear it, somehow,” she signed.
Aleksander took her hand and pulled her into the room behind them.
They sat down on the small couch.
She remembered the days, when Aleksander used to work a lot from home, so he could spent more time with his young son.
Bartosz was convinced, that he helped his father with his business tasks, by playing at his side with his lego sets.
Also he tended to fall asleep on the floor, so they bought the couch for him.
These where the good days, when the Nielsens were never mentioned in their household,
when there were no girlfriends – only the three of them.
The little family.
The times when Bartosz had watched Star Wars with Aleksander for the first time.
Then he had made hand-crafted lightsabers with Regina.
His eyes had grown huge with fascination and admiration, as his mother had told him about her fencing classes.
“My mama is a jedi!” he had screamed in awe.
And now, Katharina over-flooded her phone with messages and Bartosz spent most of his time at the Nielsen's house with Martha.
“I feel like, I am betraying my younger self. I had to endure so much because of Katharina...”
Aleksander intertwined his fingers with hers.
“One damn garden party, me holding her hair and everything is fine?” she shook her head,
“It doesn't feel right to me. I don't need her in my life.”
“It sounds reasonable to me,” her husband told her.
Regina looked at him.
“My problem is, I think she needs someone now. But I don't want to be that kind of friend-person to her,”
for a moment, she collected her thoughts.
“She only does this, because she is bored and misses Hannah and tries to replace her with me!”
Regina got up on her feet.
“Are you knowing this or are you asking me?” Aleksander asked her.
She laughed dryly, “What do you think?”
“I guess,” he replied vaguely.
Regina shook her head at him, but couldn't resist to smile.
“You guess? Aleksander – I know, it's true!”
In the beginning of Martha's and Bartosz's relationship,
Regina often had wished for her son to return home and telling her that they had split up –
of course, it made her feel like a very bad mother, but she couldn't help herself from doing so.
But now, she had grew rather fondly of Martha's occasionally presence in their lives.
Meanwhile it wasn't that much of a riddle to her any more, why her son had fallen in love with the clever and endearing girl.
She now didn't wanted Martha's heart to get broken.
Wow, she thought, what a wonderful human being you are, Regina.
“I'm in too deep,” she had said to Aleksander, while she had caught herself marking Martha's birthday in her calenders.
She still was the daughter of the people, who she couldn't stand the most... or so she had thought.
Her feelings confused her.
A weekend ago, Martha even had helped voluntarily with the renovations at the hotel.
The opening was close, but a lot of preparations still needed to be made.
She just was in the foyer, when she heard a loud shattering sound which caused her a shiver.
Following Bartosz and Martha's giggles,
she went outside in the backyard and saw how they threw some of the old window frames into one of the huge dumpsters.
The remaining glass burst inside of it.
“This is amazing!” Martha shouted over the sound, “So cool, sort of liberating!”
“Yes!” Bartosz agreed with her.
“What are you doing?” she yelled from the backdoor.
“Mama, look!”
He and Martha threw another object over the barrier and the shattering of thousands of pieces echoed from the walls.
“See! Thanks for allowing us to actually destroying things!” her son laughed.
“I'm glad you have fun, but please don't come up with the idea of trying this at home!”
Regina wasn't happy with how she acted towards Katharina.
Was it right to hold a grudge for so long?
Katharina had helped her with a problem, while she was dealing with her own...
The whole matter became much more complicated,
as Regina found out, that she was absolutely not able to act like a sane person around Katharina any longer.
The parameters of their relationship had switched way too fast from
“Don't get your hopes up, Tiedemann” to “How are you, Regina? Let's go grab some coffee and bitch about life!”
As Regina spotted Katharina in the grocery store, she scolded herself.
Why she hadn't thought about driving out of town?
Just for grocery shopping? Are you daft?
The voice in her head sounded a lot like Claudia's.
What would her mother think of her,
now that her daughter did everything to put her bags into her car secretly,
in an attempt to vanished as fast as possible from the parking lot.
She was almost sure, that she succeeded with her plan,
as she saw how Katharina moved towards her.
For once in her life she wished for a less extraordinary car.
Without thinking twice, she crouched down behind her car.
“What are you doing there?” Katharina asked her.
Regina didn't look at her, she felt the heat on her face.
“I... lost my... contact lens” she replied lamely.
“Oh, do you need help,” Katharina immediately got down to her.
“No, no,” Regina got up, “Because I don't need some, actually.”
“What?”
“I – never mind. How are you?” she leaned against her car for support.
“Okay. Have you read my messages?”
Damn it.
“Eh no. I mean, yes. My battery is low, can't find my charger.”
“Are you sure, you are okay?” Katharina raised her eyebrows.
“Can I call you later, I'm in such a hurry,” Regina smiled brightly at her.
“Of course,”
“Bye,” Regina opened the door and was about to get in, as
“Tiedemann?”
“Mmh?”
“Nice to see you.”
Regina only smiled weakly.
As Katharina was out of sight, she put her head on her steering wheel.
Congratulations, she thought, you are winning an award for the most awkward conversation avoiding attempt ever.
On her way home, she called Aleksander.
“I am stupid,” she greeted him.
“I know, you are not,” he said.
“Get the divorce papers ready, your wife really got herself in trouble!”
She briefly told him what she had told Katharina.
He laughed very loud.
“Could you please stop laughing at me,” she tried her best to sound hurt.
“I'm laughing with you. Oh Regina – contact lenses, really?”
His laugh roared through the speakers of her car.
“I shouldn't have told you,” Regina giggled.
“I love you so much,” Aleksander told her seriously, but she could picture his wide smile.
“I'm hanging up now,” she said.
As he came home later that evening, he brought a bunch of flowers with him.
They stood next to each other in the kitchen, while she opened the card he had put along the petals.
“Thank you for making me laugh”, she read out loud and rolled her eyes at him.
She threw the card over her shoulder and wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.