The Dark Path: The dark, shocking thriller that everyone is talking about
Michelle Sacks
‘A chilling, gut-wrenching thriller’ Helen Fields’Extremely scary scandi-noir…first class’ Daily MailThe perfect wife.The perfect mother.The perfect lie.A gripping page-turner for fans of The Couple Next Door, Michelle Sacks’s You Were Made For This provocatively explores the darker side of marriage, motherhood and friendship.Doting wife, devoted husband, cherished child. Merry, Sam and Conor are the perfect family in the perfect place. Merry adores baking, gardening, and caring for her infant son, while Sam pursues a new career in film. In their idyllic house in the Swedish woods, they can hardly believe how lucky they are. What perfect new lives they've built for themselves, away from New York and the events that overshadowed their happiness there.And then Merry's closest friend Frank comes to stay. All their lives, the two women have been more like sisters than best friends. And that’s why Frank sees things that others might miss. Treacherous things that unfold behind closed doors.But soon it's clear that everyone inside the house has something to hide. And as the truth begins to show through the cracks, Merry, Frank, and Sam grow all the more desperate to keep their picture-perfect lives intact.
About the Author (#ulink_6d69ae2b-8a66-53a9-a749-b9ce965f926e)
MICHELLE SACKS grew up in South Africa. Her first short story collection, Stone Baby, was published by Northwestern University Press in 2017. Her earlier writing has been published in African Pens and New Contrast, and by Akashic Books, and she was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2014. The Dark Path is her first novel.
The Dark Path
Michelle Sacks
Copyright (#ulink_f6d85816-b23b-5ca1-97ac-c075ef5ff84a)
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018
Copyright © Michelle Sacks 2018
Michelle Sacks asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
First edition published with the title You Were Made For This in Great Britain in 2018
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9780008261238
Version: 2018-10-22
Praise forThe Dark Path (#ulink_9f684bbb-56fc-5c99-bc64-325fc86d7531)
‘Dark, unsettling, and utterly absorbing… I loved it from first page to last.’
Amanda Jennings
‘If dark toxic relationships are your thing, this is one for you. Unsettling intensity with each page turned, arresting and intriguing. I read it holding my breath.’
Nina Pottell
‘everything a psychological thriller needs… toxic and stifling, the story drew me in and kept me up turning the pages long after I should have gone to bed.’
Lisa Hall
‘A chilling, gut-wrenching psychological thriller with an extraordinary intense narrative and utterly believable characters.’
Helen Fields
‘A haunting first novel… an unblinking look at beautiful people with ugly secrets, it has the voyeuristic fascination of a Bergman film.’
Publishers Weekly
‘An insightful and skilfully constructed novel… will keep readers rapt to the final page.’
Booklist
‘The savage beauty of Michelle Sacks’s prose nestled within the most chilling of stories will leave you shaken and bereft. It is a stunning accomplishment.’
Heather Gudenkauf
For my mother, Avril
You must always go carefully into the dark Swedish woods, for within the forests there live many dark, dark creatures. Witches and werewolves and wicked, wicked trolls. Beware the trolls! For they are in the habit of stealing away human children to keep for their own. Oh, you must beware the trolls, for you will not see them coming. They are terribly clever with their disguises.
—Åsa Lindqvist, Det hämndlystna trollet.
Contents
Cover (#ufd7a3ebf-2054-55d3-9e76-7fd1dc55e494)
About the Author (#ulink_63e3ce1f-3dd8-54ce-8141-29815f42a15f)
Title Page (#u77539a5e-5ca7-5f30-a298-7506911afed6)
Copyright (#ulink_5b22066c-a0f9-5250-ba21-779f37d34e08)
Praise (#ulink_ccbc6af7-df9b-5aa8-a665-6281654acc63)
Dedication (#u4158a7c1-6f4e-57f5-81e7-1781088c62d7)
Epigraph (#ua8540dd2-191e-5339-b911-63b57476ea06)
Merry (#ulink_a90b9173-15a0-529b-b2d2-034842dd791e)
Sam (#ulink_6821e8ec-fff3-56f1-9a72-b9a4ef4287bc)
Merry (#ulink_fbd6c554-cd9f-523b-b83f-b58bc7a0e6ce)
Sam (#ulink_21353043-f614-580d-a0a2-22404f4180b2)
Merry (#ulink_09e2c8cc-76da-59d5-8f96-6c3b2cbecd46)
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Merry (#ulink_b0057773-7f87-5fc0-9e81-55035120d62a)
Sam (#ulink_8cbc4f1d-e3d3-576f-acbe-b34f0483ad88)
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Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Merry (#ulink_1c01bdc2-cf14-57f5-8c5b-1d1c0c36e78a)
If you saw us you’d probably hate us. We look like the cast of an insurance commercial: shiny, happy us. The perfect little family, living the perfect little life.
Wasn’t that another perfect day? is what we always say at the end of days like these. A confirmation. A promise. A warding-off of any days that might be anything less. But most are perfect here in Sweden, many more than I can count.
It’s so beautiful, especially now in the middle of the summer, all dappled, dancing light and gentle sun. The little red wooden house we live in is out of a children’s picture book – nestled in the forest, snug as a bug, with the trees all around and the garden lush and blooming, an abundance of life – vegetable patches thick with leaves, bushes heavy with sun-ripened summer berries, the smell of blooms everywhere, heady and sweet, drawing in the bees with their charms. The summer evenings are endless and still, the sky bright well past ten, and the vast lake pale and calm like the very faintest shade of blue on a color wheel. And stillness – everywhere just the sound of the birds and the rustling of the leaves on the branches.
Our lives here involve no traffic, no pollution, no upstairs neighbors blaring music or downstairs neighbors screeching out their misery; no litter on the sidewalk or rotting Manhattan trash or sweaty L-train commutes to work, no crowds, no tourists; no daily encounters with rats or roaches or perverts or street preachers. No. Nothing but this, an impossible life of lightness and dreams. Sam and the baby and me, on our island of three.
Like most mornings after I put the baby down for his nap, I went into the kitchen to bake. Today, a pie from the blueberries we’d picked in the forest this past weekend. I made the dough myself and rolled it out, pricked it with a fork, baked it blind to crisp it. The sun was already streaming in through the big open windows, rays of light casting themselves across the floors of our bright little house. The ripened berries I cooked low and slow, excising out the juices over the heat with maple syrup and a stick of cinnamon, careful not to let it all burn and spoil. Sam in his studio smelled the butter and the sugar and the sweetness of the fruit; he came out to the kitchen to see what I’d made. He looked at me and grinned, just as pleased as punch.
See, he said, don’t I always tell you. The Dark Path.
The pie was good; we ate it still warm with mugs of coffee as we sat out in the garden under the early-afternoon sun. The baby tasted a spoonful of the innards and dribbled it all out again, like a miniature office worker who’d just chewed his blue pen. Sam laughed and scooped it back up into the spoon.
Isn’t this kid the best? he said. He lifted him and jiggled him about, so the baby laughed and squealed and spit up some more. I observed them together. The boys. My boys. Father and son. I smiled, and felt the warmth of the sun against my skin.
Down the dirt road that connects the houses on the reserve, one of the neighbors has a paddock full of prizewinning horses nursing their young. The spring foals wobble about on spindly, unsteady legs; the mares nudge them up with their muzzles, coaxing their offspring gently into the world. They are good at mothering. Patient and instinctive. Fierce with love for their young, as nature demands.
Sam and I walked the baby over to watch them in the field. Horse, Sam said, and he pointed and neighed, and the baby was in hysterics. I reached out a hand to a chestnut-brown mare who had approached the fence, felt the quiver of life and taut muscle under my fingers. She was beautiful. Strong and certain. Her black eyes were fierce.
Careful, Sam warned. New mothers can be dangerous.
We left the horses and made our way slowly back to the house. Our home for a little under a year. It’s around forty-five minutes outside of Stockholm, on a nature reserve bordering Sigtuna, the oldest town in Sweden. The reserve covers a fairly large stretch of land, mostly fields and forest nestled around the lake, with the odd house dotted in between the pines. Many of the homes have been in a single family for generations, the same red wooden cabin extended or repaired over the years as necessary; the walls within witness to the constant comings and goings of the newly born and the newly departed.
Sam inherited the house from his grandfather’s second wife, Ida, who was born and raised here. She had no children of her own, but always had a soft spot for Sam, who knew even as a child how to charm her, how to compliment her on her rose garden or her spiced cookies or the gentle Swedish accent that made all her words sound like songs. When she died some years ago, Sam discovered she’d left him the house, with the stipulation that it could never be sold, only passed down.
We’d never visited before last year, never even thought much about the house or the country. Actually, our sole point of reference for all of Sweden was one of those little red Dala horses Ida brought back for us after one of her visits. It sat atop the spice rack in our Brooklyn apartment, next to the pepper grinder and the unopened jar of saffron strands I’d bargained for at a night market in Marrakech.
Of course, moving here was Sam’s idea.
All the good ones are, he likes to joke.
He said it would be like a fairy tale. That we’d be happier than we’ve ever been.
He was right. He always is. Pointing us in the right direction; the compass that leads me away from the storms. How lucky I am to have him.
Later in the afternoon, the three of us took a long walk through the forest, the baby in the backpack carrier, hitched snugly to Sam. As we walked, we named the trees and birds we’ve learned to identify this past year – a spruce, a nest of finches, Fraxinus excelsior, a common ash. These are our newfound pleasures and hobbies, the things we busy ourselves with over here. We laugh at ourselves sometimes, imagining the people we once were.
In the little town of Sigtuna, we stopped for thick rye-crumbed herrings and potato salad at the café by the pier; listened to the sounds of the seagulls and the lapping water as they blended hypnotically with the low chatter of the well-turned-out Swedes. The waitress tickled the baby’s cheek and took our order in flawless English. Tack, we said. Tack.
Back home, I gave the baby his bath and rocked him gently to sleep in my arms. I breathed into his neck and traced a hand gently over his downy golden hair, which was slowly beginning to thicken. I touched a hand to his chest, felt the thud of his beating heart, steady and miraculous every time; doof doof, the echo of life. Sam and I, tired out from the walk and the fresh air, climbed in between the crisp sheets before it had turned dark outside. I curled into my husband’s arms, gazed at his handsome face, the dark eyes, the sharp jaw, that chest of his that feels plated in armor. A solid man, a man who can carry the weight of you, and does.
I let out a contented sigh. Wasn’t that another perfect day? I said.
Sam kissed my forehead and closed his eyes. I moved my arm to turn over onto my front.
No, he said, stay.
Yes, it’s just as Sam said. A fairy-tale life in the woods.
Sam (#ulink_9a08ba6e-3a85-5d57-8fef-ed94ce198b01)
Today is our one-year anniversary of moving to Sweden. Hard to believe. A full year, a new country, a new home, a new child. A whole new life. A better one, that’s for sure. To celebrate, I returned home from my meeting in Stockholm with a bunch of fresh spring flowers, a bottle of wine, and a knitted Viking hat for Conor that I picked up in one of the tourist stores in the old town.
Merry was in the kitchen, her long dark hair bundled on top of her head, her apron tied around her waist. She smiled when she saw me. I kissed her and she went to fetch a vase for the flowers.
Beautiful, she said.
As is my wife, I replied. I know she likes it when I call her that.
She put her arms around me and I breathed in her smell; perfume and something recently fried. Happy Swede-iversary, she said. Look, I made Swedish meatballs to celebrate.
Where’s my boy? I asked, and went to find Conor. He was on the activity mat in the living room, lying on his back, trying to get at the frog that hangs suspended from the green plastic bar. This child. I can’t get enough of him. Eight months and counting. He’s growing by the day, a little evolution at the speed of light; always changing, always in motion.
How’s my champ today, I said, lying down beside him. He smiled at me, the smile that turns my heart on its head: gummy and pink and pure love. I nuzzled my face into his belly, inhaled the smell of talcum powder and diaper cream.
I put the hat on his little head and lifted him up to show Merry. Two blond Viking braids hung down from the hat. Conor grabbed one and put it in his mouth.
Great, Merry laughed, now he’s ready to lead an invasion.
She’s so happy here. Light and happy. Unburdened. I love to see her like this. It’s all I’ve ever wanted for her. For us.
I handed her the baby so I could go and wash up for dinner. She cradled him close, and I paused a minute to frame the scene.
Beautiful, I said again.
We sat down together around Ida’s old oak table, Con in the high chair I built for him, Merry and I across from one another. She’d unpinned her hair, parted it to the side just as I like best. She was wearing a blue blouse that made her gray eyes appear almost translucent, as though they were portals to some other world, or altogether empty behind.
I poured the wine, Merry dished up the food and wiped the rim of the plates where the sauce had spilled. She’d lit candles even though it would still be light out for hours, and set the flowers on the far end of the table.
To Sweden, I toasted.
Merry held up her wine and we clinked our glasses together.
So good, I said, eating a mouthful.
Remember when we met, I laughed, you could hardly make a slice of toast.
It can be hard sometimes to remember that Merry. So much has changed since then.
Another lifetime, Merry said.
Yeah, I agreed. And this one’s a far better fit.
She was radiant, the evening light from outside streaming in, painting her edges in a soft golden glow.
She was trying to feed Conor, but he kept turning his head away.
What have you got for him?
Broccoli, carrot, and chicken, she said.
Lucky guy. I smiled. Let me.
I took the blue plastic spoon from her.
Vrooom, vroooom. He opened his mouth wide and was done in no time.
See? I winked. He just wants you to work a little harder for it.
Later, after Con was asleep in his crib, Merry and I lay out on the lawn and finished the bottle of wine. I pulled her to me and kissed her deeply.
The stars above us blanketed the sky in light. The lavender in the garden floated its scent in the air, a little too overpowering. I could make out Merry’s eyes, watching me, and within them, the edges of my reflection. I lifted her blouse and moved her down beneath me.
Sam, she protested.
Shhh, I said, we’re in the middle of nowhere.
She relaxed under me and shuddered slightly as I pried her open and apart.
Besides, I reminded her, we’re supposed to be trying for another baby.
Yes.
This is the life.
This is exactly how it’s meant to be.
Merry (#ulink_39a376a3-cd1c-59c2-9a7c-531a3dd085c2)
Today my project was jam and baby food. There’s a surplus of produce from the garden and the refrigerator is almost empty of the little pots of food I make for the baby’s meals. Sam and I agreed that he should eat as much organic and homemade food as possible, so we grow most of the vegetables ourselves, and I cook it up and turn it all into puree to bottle and store. It’s not that much more work, really. I suppose nothing is when it comes to your children.
When we arrived last year, everything was wild and overgrown, fifteen years of neglect, of unweeded lawn and trees beset with rot. We pulled down the rotted spruces, heaved out the gnarlrooted bushes and the lawn overrun with chickweed and black grass. We bought books on horticulture and planted rows and rows of seedlings from the nursery. Sam custom-built bricked-in vegetable patches and cold frames for the winter to guard against the frost. There were plagues of snails and fungus, seedlings that refused to sprout, mis-planted produce that we tried and failed to grow in the wrong seasons. Slowly, eventually, we worked out the rhythms of planting and picking, the time it takes to nurture a cabbage, the optimal alkalinity of the soil. We are quite expert now, or at least I am. Like the kitchen, the garden is my domain.
There is no shortage of produce these days. Every morning, I am outside sowing the seeds, removing the weeds, harvesting the vegetables from out of the soil. The smell of earth sits heavy in the air; the smell of something wholesome and good. Back to basics, Sam says. He likes to pretend he can taste the difference; he’ll take a bite of salad and rule it home-grown or market-bought. I usually lie if he guesses wrong. I hate for him to feel silly.
For the baby’s food, I boil the vegetables in pots on the stove, one for carrots, one for broccoli, one for zucchini. I write labels for the jars, as though the baby might be able to read them and choose his own dinner. Sam likes to open the refrigerator and see them all lined up in a row, a little army of food soldiers ready to serve.
Who’s been a busy little wife? he’ll say.
Oh, that would be me, I’ll reply, with a wink. Coy and cute.
I sure am a busy little wife. It is the role I was born for, according to Sam. He cannot get enough of me like this, wifely and domestic and maternal. Perhaps he is right, and I was built for it. I certainly seem to excel at it. A natural, you might say, if you didn’t know how hard I work to pull it all off.
Never mind; it’s worth it, isn’t it? What more could I hope for. What more do I need? The love of a husband, the gift of a child. It is enough – it is everything.
Sometimes this new life makes me feel as though I am living as a quaint eighteenth-century settler wife. Growing things, baking bread, going to the weekly farmer’s market to choose my box of greens: zucchini, kale, celery, whatever I can’t grow in your own garden. Sam marvels at the offerings – the freshness of wild Norwegian salmon, the taste of real farm butter or eggs plucked right out from under a hen.
How did we ever survive in the States? he says.
You’d wonder, I reply.
We do this frequently, compare life before and after; new world and old. Sweden always wins. There is seldom much need for debate. Sweden is Sam’s gift to me, to us. It is the answer to everything, it has been the cure for all that ailed us before. Paradise, he calls it, and waits for me to agree.
I always do. How could I not.
As well as jam and baby food, it was a bathroom and kitchen day, so after finishing with the food, I made my homemade cleaning paste of vinegar and baking soda – the recipe courtesy of a blog Sam found for me. It’s full of household tips, like how to make scented candles and the best ways to remove stubborn mold from the grouting. He subscribed me to the newsletter so I need never miss a single tip.
He’s good like that. Proactive. I admire that quality in a person, the ability to decide and do, to set plans in motion. It has never been something I’m particularly good at. I often wonder what my life might look like if I was.
On my knees in the bathroom, I started with the bath. Scrubbing and shining the taps till I could see myself reflected back, distorted and inverted, pulling our week of collective shed hair out of the drain in a single swampy ball. The toilet next, finicky work, head in the bowl. What would my mother say if she could see me now? In the mirror, I looked at myself. Unkempt, that’s what my mother would say. Or, more likely, hideous. Unwashed, no makeup, skin slicked in oil. A thin trickle of sweat pooling down my T-shirt. I sniffed under my armpits.
Then I smiled into the mirror, dazzling and wide. I opened my arms in a gesture of gracious welcome.
Welcome to our home, I said aloud. Welcome to our lives.
The woman in the mirror looked happy. Convincing.
There was a phone call earlier this morning from Frank. She woke the baby.
I’m coming to Sweden, she said.
What?
I’m coming to visit!
I’ve said it to her again and again in the year we’ve been here, at the end of every email and phone call. You must visit, it’s wonderful; we’d love to have you.
And now she is coming. She will be here in a few weeks.
Your best friend, Sam said when I told him. That’s great news.
Yes, isn’t it, I said, smiling.
I’d emailed her just a few days ago. Another missive about my wonderful Swedish life, with photographs as proof. Something home-baked, a smiling child, a shirtless husband. She replied almost immediately, informing me of her new promotion, a sparkling new penthouse in Battersea. She attached a photograph of herself from a recent break to the Maldives. Frank in a pineapple-print bikini, sun-kissed and oiled, the lapping Indian Ocean in the background, a coconut cocktail in her hand.
I wonder what she’ll make of all this. The picture of my life, when she sees it in the flesh.
I wiped the mirror and opened the windows to air the room of the stench of vinegar. In the kitchen, I moved the dishwasher and cleaned the dirt gathered against the wall. I scoured the oven of fat and grease, climbed up on the ladder to clean the top of the refrigerator. Sometimes I like to carve out messages in the dust. HELP, I wrote this morning, for no particular reason.
The baby woke up and began to cry just as I was halfway through bottling the last of the excess vegetables in brine. Pickling is another of my newfound skills. It’s very rewarding. I went into the baby’s room and stared at him in his crib.
Boiling over, face red with rage at his neglect. Spit foaming out of his mouth as he cried. He saw me and frowned, held out his arms, rocked on his haunches to try to propel himself up and out.
I watched him. With all my heart, I tried to summon it. Please, I thought, please.
Instincts, they call them, but for me they are the very furthest thing. Buried somewhere deep inside under too many layers, or altogether missing.
Please, I urged again, I coaxed, I begged. But inside, like always, there was only emptiness. Cold and hollow. The great void within.
I could do nothing but stand and watch.
The baby’s cries grew more urgent, his face twisted with hot and vicious need. Almost purple. I stood helpless, rooted to the spot. I turned my head away so he would stop appealing to my eyes, imploring me to alleviate his rage. Unable to comprehend that I could not do it.
I looked around his room, filled with books and stuffed toys. A map of the world on the wall, along with stenciled illustrations of Arctic mammals. Polar bear. Moose. Fox. Wolf. I’d done it myself, the last month of pregnancy, balancing a paint box on the mound of my belly. The whole world, just for him. And still it is not enough. I am not enough.
And he is too much.
In the noise, I tried to find my breath, to feel the beating of my heart. It was pounding today, loud with upsets of its own; an angry fist in a cage.
I edged closer to the crib and peered down at the hysterical child. My child. I shook my head.
I’m sorry, I said at last. Mommy is not in the mood.
I left the room and closed the door behind me.
Sam (#ulink_d9d72f63-6384-5f40-98f0-f049f6d50bb8)
Karl and I sat outside while the women finished up the salads in the kitchen. He and his wife, Elsa, are our neighbors from across the field, good solid Swedes, wholesome and hardworking. She’s in adult education; he runs a start-up that converts heating systems into more energy-efficient models. They invited us to their midsummer party last year right after we moved in, and this is how long it’s taken us to have them over.
New baby, I apologized, and Karl shrugged. Of course.
Their daughter, Freja, was sitting on the lawn playing with Conor. Karl and I were talking, and I was trying not to stare at him too intently. It’s hard to look away. His startling blue eyes, the height and spread of him. A full-blooded Viking. He’d brought over a gift of vacuum-sealed elk meat.
You’ll have to join me for a hunt one day, he said. All the Swedes do it.
So, remind me, Karl said, what is it you do.
I shifted. I’m trying to get into film, I said. Documentary film.
You were doing that before?
No, I said. Before, I was an academic. Associate professor of anthropology. Columbia University.
He raised his eyebrows. Interesting. What was your area of study?
I smiled. The transformative masks of ritual and ceremony in West Africa, particularly the Ivory Coast. How’s that for useless information?
It’s very interesting, I’m sure.
It was, actually. The masks are fascinating, I said. The way they enable such fluidity of identity and power in these tribes, the way they depend on masking and performance for their—
I stopped myself from continuing. From remembering what
I missed.
Onward, onward and up.
Anyway, it was time for a change, I said.
I finished the last of the beer in my glass, thought back to the final meeting with that brittle spinster Nicole from Human Resources. Sign here, initial this. A swift and unceremonious dismissal that took almost two decades of work – all the successes and accolades and titles – and vanished it into the ether.
But they haven’t even heard my side, I said.
They know more than enough already, she replied coolly.
So you moved here for a new job, Karl said.
Not exactly, I said. I’m starting out. It’s going to take some time. At the moment, it’s pretty much just meetings and pitches, trying to show my reel to the right people.
I cracked my knuckles, the reassuring click of bones fitting into place. Karl wasn’t letting up.
But why pick Sweden? he asked.
I shrugged. We had the house. We wanted a different kind of life. Americans live so superficially – it’s all distraction and noise. I – well, we – we wanted something more real.
America is not real? Karl smiled. He’d already finished his second beer. I reached into the cooler and handed him a third.
America is a country built on myths, I said. Manifest destiny, American exceptionalism. The idea that we’re better than we really are.
Karl nodded. So what is the verdict? It’s better over here?
Of course, I said. Sweden feels like the best place in the world to be.
Karl laughed. Maybe you’re not looking closely enough. He raised his beer and gave a mock toast. Anyway, he said, let’s hope you’re right.
I looked at Conor on the lawn, bright-eyed and thriving.
Of course this was the place.
Freja came over to show Karl a cut on her finger. He said something to her in Swedish and she nodded and went back to Conor.
So you don’t miss home, Karl said. Being around your own people.
There’s not a damn thing I miss about the USA, I said.
Elsa came out balancing a bowl of coleslaw anda green salad. Merry followed with a pile of plates and cutlery. She looked tired. She’d been up since early, preparing for the guests. Next to Elsa, she seemed vaguely off-putting, her hair unwashed and pulled back into a messy bun.
No time, she’d said earlier when I asked.
There’s always time, I said, just not always good time management.
What about you, Merry, Karl asked. Do you miss being in the States?
Merry glanced over at me and shrugged. What’s there to miss?
We sat to eat, passed around bowls of food and saltshakers. Merry had overdressed the salad, but I said nothing.
It’s very good, Elsa said.
I noticed she hardly ate a thing.
Merry brought out a bowl with Conor’s baby food, and Freja asked if she might feed him. She took a spoon and made an airplane, flying mush into his mouth.
Look at that. I smiled. She’s a real natural.
Yes, Karl said, she can’t wait for a baby brother or sister to play with.
Elsa put down her knife and fork. Karl took a sip of his beer and gave me a knowing smile. In the meantime, he said, we have bought her a cat.
Elsa looked over at Conor and patted his arm. He is a wonderful baby, she said. Very sweet.
Sure is, I said, wondering how it was possible Karl didn’t crack her in half every time he lay on top of her.
Merry stood up to clear the dishes, scraping and stacking, refusing Elsa’s offer to help. When she came back out, she carried a cake for dessert; summer berries piled in the middle and drizzled in cream.
My domestic goddess, I said. What have we got here?
Merry passed around glass plates and silver cake forks. I recognized them from her mother’s silverware set.
Merry, Karl said, you haven’t told us what you do.
I pointed to the cake. She does this, I said, and we all laughed.
I used to work as a set designer, Merry said, almost inaudibly.
For movies? Karl asked.
Movies, TV shows, often just TV commercials.
Yes, I said, she was always constructing these little made-up worlds. Kitchens and living rooms, those generic sets you see on all the crappy ads. Disinfectant hand soap or mattresses.
Well, there were some more interesting projects, Merry said.
I had a sudden memory of her coming home one night with a green armchair she’d spent all day tracking down. She’d asked me to help her haul it up to our apartment. I remember how I resented that chair, and her for interrupting me for help with something so silly while I was grading papers. The job was beneath her. Beneath us.
I looked at her now. She had that look she gets from time to time. Pensive. Melancholic. Like she is slipping away. Forgetting herself.
I took another mouthful of cake. God, this is good, isn’t it?
Yes, Karl agreed. It’s a very good cake.
Merry blinked and smiled.
Do you plan to find something similar over here? Elsa asked. There are a lot of shows shot locally, in Stockholm or Gothenburg. It would be very convenient, very close by for you.
I caught Merry’s eye, and she shook her head. No, she said. It’s good to just focus on motherhood for now. That’s really the most important thing.
Before they left, I took Karl inside to show him my collection of African masks. Six carved wooden faces: three from the Ivory Coast, one from Benin, two Igbo fertility masks from my semester in Nigeria.
How exotic, he said.
They are terrifying. Elsa shuddered.
I laughed. Merry feels the same way. She’s been begging me to put them away in a box for years.
Elsa smiled. And still they are on the wall, she said.
After we said our goodbyes, I closed the door and pulled Merry to me.
That was fun, I said.
Yes, she said.
Aren’t they like wax models, those two?
Yes, she said. Elsa is flawless.
I made a mental note to take Karl up on his offer to go hunting, while Merry went to finish the last of the cleaning up, packing dishes into the dishwasher, wiping down the countertops, gathering the crumbs into her hand.
I lifted Conor off the rug and into my arms. He smelled of Elsa’s perfume. And shit.
I handed him over to Merry. Looks like it’s time for a diaper change, I said.
Merry (#ulink_28739f8a-132c-5039-84b9-858c9e20256e)
I watch the baby through the bars of his crib. A little prison, to keep him safely inside. He watches me. He does not smile. I do not bring him joy.
Well. The feeling is mutual.
I look at his face. I watch closely for signs of change. They tell you that they transform all the time. They are supposed to resemble their father first, then their mother, then back again. But he is only me. All me. Too much of me.
His eyes stare, a constant reproach. Accusatory. Remember, they say, remember what you have done. I’m sorry, I whisper, and look away.
My bars are not bars. They are glass and trees. The glass cage that is our house, the huge glass windows all around that Ida’s father installed to maximize light and space. The ancient tall pines that block off the light. My island exile, all escapes closed off, all outside life shut out. Just us.
Sam and me and the baby.
All we need, Sam says.
Is it? I say. Doesn’t it feel like we’re the last three survivors of a plane crash?
Oh … He laughs at my silliness.
He was off in Stockholm or Uppsala today – I forget which – playing his show reel for ad executives and producers. He is trying hard to make this work. He really is doing his best. He always does. Family, he says: nothing matters more. This is why we moved here, a new start, the very best place to raise a family. How he loves the baby. How he adores every part of him and every little thing he does. Once, he looked at me like this, as though I were a wonder of nature, a rare being to worship and adore.
Ba-ba. Ma-ma. Pa-pa.
Everything we say is broken into two syllables.
Bird-ee.
Hors-ee.
Hous-ie.
The baby eats some of the time but not always. Often I make him food and eat it myself, letting him watch as I spoon it into my mouth.
See? No mess.
I offer him the spoon and he shakes his head.
The baby cries a lot but forms no words. He rocks on his belly but does not yet know how to crawl. There are milestones that I am surely supposed to be checking and am not. The copy Sam bought me of The Ultimate Guide to Baby’s First Year lies unopened next to the bed, under a tube of organic rose hand cream that sends five percent of its profits to the preservation of the rain forest.
You read it, right?
Of course, I lie. It was terrifically informative.
The baby. My baby. He has a name, but somehow I can’t bring myself to say it out loud. Conor Jacob Hurley. Naturally, Sam named him. Conor Jacob, he said, Jacob after his best friend from high school who was lost at sea on a round-the-world sailing trip. Conor in deference to Sam’s vaguely Irish roots. Conor Jacob. Conor Jacob Hurley. It was decided, written down on the tag on his tiny wrist. I read it. I mouthed the words of my son’s name. Conor Jacob Hurley.
The balloons next to the hospital bed were baby blue. One had already burst, its deflated remains drifting forlornly among the rest.
Would you like to hold your son? the nurse offered.
If Sam was out of the room, I would shake my head.
He believes I am a good mother, the very best kind. Devoted and all-nurturing and selfless. Without a self. Perhaps he is right about the last part. Sometimes I wonder myself: Where am I? Or: Was there anyone there to begin with?
The days Sam isn’t home always feel like a vacation. The baby and I have no audience to impress. Usually, I don’t shower. I don’t change out of my nightgown. I sit on the couch watching reality TV, my dirty little habit (one of many, I should add). I cannot get enough. Plastic women devouring each other, housewives and teen mothers. How they play at being real, when really it’s all for the cameras. Still, everyone pretends not to know. The conspiracy is a success.
Most days, I eat wedges of butter to stave off my sugar cravings and keep my weight down, but when Sam’s away, I unpack my hidden stash from the barrel of the washing machine and indulge in whole bags of crisps and cookies, which I smuggle home from the grocery store under packs of diapers and organic detergent. I am vile. Terrifically unladylike. I pick at my toenails and squeeze out the ingrown hairs from my legs. Sam would shudder if ever he saw me like this. Sometimes I shudder myself, at this version of me. Well, she will need to be banished once Frank arrives. There will be no such escapes for a while.
Some days, I think it would be nice to go out, to leave our little island territory, but of course Sam has the car. It’s an hour on foot to get anywhere from here, and forty minutes’ walk to the nearest bus station. Sam bought himself a mountain bike for the trails, but it’s been ruled out for me. Too dangerous, he said, with a baby.
That leaves us stuck. Just us. Mother and child, with nothing to do but revel in domestic duties. I suspect Sam likes it. No, I know he does. My lack of distraction. My utter focus. Actually, it surprises me how encouraging he’s being about Frank’s visit. In New York, I was always hearing complaints about any outside interests or distractions. The parts of me that weren’t entirely consumed with Sam. Sam’s favorite music, Sam’s current reading list, Sam’s teaching materials, his new eating habits, or his latest workout. Sam’s everything. And now Sam’s baby.
The baby. The baby we made. The baby we let into the world. I remember how I felt that day, standing in the pokey beige bathroom of our apartment which always smelled of the deep fryer from the Indian restaurant downstairs, looking at the two lines faint on the stick, the lines of life, imminent and incontrovertible. It was the second test. Whoopsie daisy. A whoopsie baby.
The door burst open, Sam home early and unexpectedly.
Is that? he asked, looking at me, caught red-handed. I did not miss a beat. Yes, Sam, I cried. Isn’t it the very best news.
The origin of the word suffer is “to bear.” You are not supposed to overcome it. You are only supposed to endure. I am free to leave, this is what anyone would say to me, but the question is how, and with what, and to where. These have never been questions I could answer. They have never seemed like my decisions to make. In this world, I have no one but Sam. He knows this. It is surely part of the allure. That and how I am no good on my own. I would not know where to begin.
There are sleepless nights and nights that don’t end. I wake sometimes and find the baby in my arms, yet I have no recollection of fetching him. He screams himself awake and I go to his crib, watching him turn red and fuming, tears streaming down his face, cries catching violently in his throat. Feral, raging changeling from the wild. I am reluctant to pick him up, loath to offer him comfort, even though this is all he wants from me, all he asks. I cannot give it. I can only stand and watch, silent and unmoving, until he is all cried out and too exhausted for more.
Sleep training, I’ll explain to Sam, if he complains about the crying. I’ll quote a reputable pediatric authority, because I like to show him how seriously I take our child’s development. Still, he’ll find things to point out that I am doing wrong. He’ll offer wisdom and advice – minor improvements, he calls them, and there’s always room for these. Yes. He does love to educate me. He is very good at it. Filling in the blanks. I think perhaps he considers me to be one of the blanks, too, and slowly he is filling me in. Do this, wear that. Now you should quit your job. Now we should marry. Now we should breed.
Over the years he has shown me what to appreciate and what to disavow. Italian opera, classical Russian pianists. Experimental jazz. Korean food. French wine.
Is it Dvořák? I ask him, as though I don’t know. As though I wasn’t the one raised in the oceanfront house in Santa Monica, lavished with education and private lessons beyond anything I wanted or deserved.
Husband. Hūsbonda. Master of the house.
I suppose he only tells me things I don’t know myself. What I need. What I want. Who I am. And in return for this, I give it my all. I give Sam the exact woman he wants me to be. A faultless performance. Nothing else would do.
The men before Sam wanted to rescue me, kiss away the boo-boos. Sam wanted to make me over from scratch. And I hate to disappoint him, because disappointing Sam is the worst feeling in the world. It is the end of the world, actually, and the return of the hopeless, relentless, gnawing vacancy inside.
You’ll be a terrific mother, Merry, he told me all through the pregnancy, through the nausea and the discomfort and that feeling of hostile, unstoppable invasion. He couldn’t take his eyes off me, or his hands off my swollen belly. He was mesmerized with what he imagined was his singular achievement.
Look at this, he marveled. We made this life; we made this living being inside of you.
The miracle of it, he said.
It felt like the very farthest thing. But Sam had already carried us away on a dream and a plan: Sweden. A brand-new life. Shed the old skin and slip into another. There was something enticing about the idea of it, of leaving New York with its many secrets and shames. Some of them Sam’s, the biggest one belonging to me.
The baby, the baby. Sam loves him with such ferocity, it can sometimes make it hard for me to breathe. And now there will be Frank to think of. Frank in my house. Frank in my life. So close. Perhaps too close. We are childhood friends, that most dangerous kind. Bonded over memories and sleepovers and secrets; over betrayals and jealousies and cruelties big and small. She has always been in my life somehow, a lingering presence. Even when we are far apart, separated by cities or continents, it is Frank I think of most. It is Frank I crave. I imagine her reacting to what I do and say, to how I live, to whom I love. I imagine Frank taking it all in. I imagine what it feels like for her, to see my life and hold it up against her own. We need each other like this. We always have.
I remember when she first moved to New York – snapped up after her MBA by one of the top consulting firms. Suddenly she was a different Frank. Jet-setting between cities, dating hedgefund managers, living in a penthouse apartment with a Russian art dealer for a roommate. Well, I packed my things and moved there myself a few months later. My father paid my rent.
But what are you doing here? Frank asked when I arrived on her doorstep one Saturday morning with two cream cheese bagels.
I’ve always planned to live here, I said, I told you.
Yes. We need each other. Without the other, how would either of us exist?
It was nine o’clock when Sam returned home, much earlier than he’d said. The baby was in his crib, newly asleep with the help of a teaspoon or two of cough syrup. I do this occasionally, on the more difficult days. It’s meant to be harmless. Mother’s little helper, is all.
Other things I do too. Like put pillows too close to the baby’s head. Or set him down to nap just a touch too near the edge of the bed. I don’t know why. I don’t know what it is that compels me. I only know I cannot stop it. Often I weep. Other times, all is numb, whole parts of me dead and blackened like a gangrenous limb. Immune to life.
I was on the sofa when I heard Sam’s car on the gravel. I startled. I’d been watching a show about women who compete with their best friends to see who can throw the better wedding. I hadn’t yet cleaned myself up. I quickly snapped shut the laptop and opened a book on early childhood development.
Hello, wife, Sam said, kissing me on the mouth.
His breath was stale, the smell of rotting meat. My stomach turned.
How did it go today? I asked.
He ignored the question, sat down next to me, and cupped my swollen breasts, weighed them like a medieval merchant.
Our Merry’s in musk, it seems, he said, laughing. I know what you’ll be wanting, he said, a finger burrowing inside my jeans. I was unwashed; I could smell myself on his fingers.
Have you been using the thermometer? he asked. You have to do it every day so we get the dates right.
A few weeks ago, he bought me a basal thermometer. I am supposed to take my temperature every morning and track the stages of my ovulation. Follicular phase, luteal phase, cycle length, everything recorded and set to a graph that displays on an app on my phone. Conception made science. When I am at my most fertile, the phone beeps frantically and a red circle appears on the screen. It’s a red day, it declares. A reminder. A warning.
I’m using it, I said. But it takes a while to work out your cycle.
He is impatient with me. He wants me pregnant again. Insisted we start trying when the baby was barely two months old.
It’s too soon, I begged. Everything hurts.
Nonsense, he said. The doctor said six weeks.
I would bleed afterward, shocked pink blood on the sheets and in my underwear the next day. Several pairs I deposited straight into the trash, the blood stiff and dried brown, smelling strongly of rust and decay.
Come, Sam said. He led me to the bedroom, set me down gently, with purpose.
I lay there and pretended to enthuse. Oh, yes. More. Please. He likes it when I beg. When I say thank you afterward, like he has given me a gift.
Some days it is harder than others to remember gratitude. To acknowledge my awful good luck. Sam went slow, stopping to look into my eyes. He repulses me sometimes. A physical reaction to his smell and his touch; the way he breathes through his mouth with his tongue lifted up, the way the hairs on his shoulders sprout in odd patches of wiry black strands.
Something inside me heaves and shudders to have him close.
I suppose that’s normal.
I love you, Merry, he said, and then I did feel it. Grateful. Loved. Or at least I think it’s what I felt. Sometimes it’s hard to know for sure.
Sam on top, inside, he clutched at me with both hands and breathed into my ear.
Let’s make a baby, he said, right before he came.
Sam (#ulink_b8870998-652f-508c-9b93-b3c145987564)
I was up early this morning, shaved, dressed, half out the door. Merry was setting Conor down in his high chair.
Where are you going?
Uppsala again, I said. I told you a few days ago.
You didn’t, she said.
It’s okay, I said, giving them each a quick kiss. You probably just forgot. You know how bad your memory can be.
You’re going again?
It’s a callback, I said. A meeting with the executive creative director this time.
She nodded. Good luck.
In the car, I checked the time, then my phone.
10 a.m., I wrote.
I pulled out of the drive and headed slowly past the neighboring houses. Mr. Nilssen was out with the horses. I raised my hand in greeting. He’s supposedly a billionaire. Sells his horses to the Saudis but still drives a Honda. God, I love the Swedes. Gives me a thrill every morning, driving out, seeing where we live and how. The sheer good fortune of it all. Sometimes you get lucky, I guess.
The day was going to be a good one. Sunny and clear. The traffic was smooth.
In forty minutes, I was outside her apartment door, ringing the doorbell.
You’re early, she said when she opened up. She was wearing a dress, ivory satin, tied tightly against her so it looked like she’d been submerged in thick cream. Her hair was loose, long, and blond and softly curled at the shoulders.
Hello, Malin. I smiled.
Come inside, she said.
Later, around the boardroom table, I looked at six young Swedes as they watched my reel. It’s a mix of old footage from the field and some new material I’ve been working on in the studio I’ve set up for myself at home. It’s good work. I know my way around a scene. I’ve been told that I have an excellent eye for framing. That I’m a natural at this.
I sipped an espresso from a mint green cup.
This is great, the creative director commented, very dynamic.
I reckon I have a fresh perspective, I said. With my background.
It wasn’t so difficult, all this self-promotion. Fake it till you make it and all.
It says here you taught at Columbia?
Yes, I said.
Why the career change?
I gave a wry smile. Well, after enough years teaching young people, you realize you’ve got it in reverse. They know it all and you’re just a dinosaur with a piece of chalk.
Oh, and I was fired. I guess I could have added that.
They laughed. A good answer. Endearing, not too cocky. I’ve got it down to an art.
So you did a lot of filmmaking as an anthropologist?
Some, yes. Mostly in the early days of my career, the time I spent doing fieldwork in Africa. But film was always what I really wanted to do. That’s why I’ve returned to documentary now.
They looked at me and I smiled. Not one of them a day over thirty, and all of them so effortlessly self-possessed you’d think they were Fortune 500 CEOs.
Snow tires. The shoot is for a company that makes snow tires.
Great, I said. Sounds interesting.
A mobile phone rang and the producer got up to take the call. Before he left the room, he slipped a business card onto the table in front of me.
Sorry, the creative director said, we’re busy with a big project at the moment; everyone’s a little distracted.
It was my cue to leave. I shut my laptop and stood up, knocking the chair back as I did.
He shook my hand. We’ll let you know.
How was your meeting? Merry asked when I got back home.
It was good, I said, really good.
She beamed. Wonderful.
She had Conor in her arms, freshly bathed and ready for bed.
His eyes were red, like he’d been crying.
Did you two have a good day? I asked.
Oh, for sure, she said. The best.
Merry (#ulink_b338684c-4fc4-52d8-91b1-ab5cfdf0dbc2)
Domestic chores aren’t usually Sam’s department, but last night he volunteered to bathe the baby. He emerged from the bathroom afterward holding him in a towel.
Hey, he said, what’s this over here?
He lifted the towel and showed me the child’s thighs. My face flushed. I had not noticed the marks, four little blue bruises against his skin.
That is strange, I said. I swallowed.
I wonder, Sam said, could his clothes be too tight? Could that be it?
Yes, I said, more than likely. I should have bought him the next size up by now.
Sam nodded. Well, you should take care of that in the morning.
Absolutely, I said, first thing.
And so, in the name of new baby clothes, I was permitted the car for today. Sam took the baby and I headed into Stockholm, music blaring, windows open to the warm midsummer air. Exhilarating, the heady feeling of freedom, of leaving the island behind. I had dressed up, a light floral summer skirt, a sleeveless blouse.
In Stockholm, I parked the car and checked my face in the mirror. I loosened my hair and shook it out. I painted on mascara and lined my lips with color. Transformed. I walked a short way to a café in Södermalm I’d read about.
Sometimes I do this, page through travel magazines and imagine all the alternative lives I might be living. Drinks at the newest gin bar in Barcelona, a night in Rome’s best boutique hotel.
I picked up an English newspaper from the counter and sat at a table by the window, pretending to read. I love to peoplewatch in the city. Everyone is so beautiful. Clear skin and bright eyes, hair shining, bodies taut and well proportioned. There is no excess. Nothing bulging out or hanging over or straining at the seams. Even their clothes seem immune to crumpling. It isn’t just Karl and Elsa next door: it’s a whole country of them.
Immaculate Elsa. I should probably invite her over for fika, try to make friends. We could discuss pie recipes and childrearing; I might ask her about her skincare routine. Only I’ve never been very good at it. Female friendships. Well, apart from Frank, I suppose.
Sam keeps asking if I’m excited for her visit. I try to be enthusiastic. I do look forward to it, I think. Showing off our lives, showing her everything I have accomplished. Showing her who is ahead.
But there is another part of me that feels deep unease. Something about the way Frank always sees more than she should. She likes to think she knows me better than anyone – maybe even myself. She considers this a triumph. So she pokes at my life like a child with a stick, prodding at a dead seal washed up on the shore. Waiting to see what crawls out. Peekaboo, I see you!
She is always digging, digging, trying to go beyond the surface. The real you, she says, I know the real Merry. Whatever that means.
At the table across from me, I watched a young woman. She must have been in her early twenties, blond and slim and well dressed. She was eating a cinnamon bun, forking small bites of pastry into her mouth. She kept brushing a finger gently to her lips. She talked with an older man, perhaps in his forties, dressed in a gray cashmere sweater and dark jeans. Like me, he watched her movements closely, followed her fork with his eyes into her mouth; followed her fingers as they danced on those red lips. At one point she touched his arm, casual and friendly and innocent of all desire, but for him I could see it was electrifying.
She was showing him something on a laptop screen, pointing with her long fingers. She wore no wedding band, just a thin gold ring on her index finger, set with a small topaz stone in the center. He nodded intently as she spoke; she wrote something down in a notebook that lay open next to her cup. He watched her take a sip, the way she licked her lips to make sure that no foam lingered. Love or infatuation, who could ever tell.
An older woman walked in alone, ordered a coffee and a sandwich from the barista, and sat down at a table near the window. She was flawless. White trousers, neat leather pumps, pearl earrings. She must have been sixty or more, glowing and beautiful, without anything surgically pulled or plumped. It is a mystery here, how their women are permitted to age with such grace.
I thought of my own mother, her freakish final face and all the ones in between. So many years she spent obsessively trying to ward off the inevitabilities of aging. Every few months, something new. Eyes ironed out at the corners, extra skin pulled back and sewn high into the temples. Fatty deposits sucked out and reassigned, either to cheeks or lips. Breasts lifted, stomach fat suctioned through a pump.
As a child, I loved to watch her getting herself ready to go out. My father was always coming home with invitations to galas and balls; charity dinners or openings of new wings at the hospital. It was an elaborate performance, painting on a face, torturing her hair into some elegant updo, squeezing into a dress two sizes too small and two decades too young.
You’re so pretty, I’d say.
I’m not pretty enough, she always replied.
Or sometimes: I used to be, before you came along.
There were many things for which I was accused and held accountable. The loss of her figure. The thinning of her hair. The sagging of her skin. The absence of my father’s attention.
He never told her to stop the surgeries. Perhaps this was how he punished her.
Sam likes me natural, he says. This means slim. Groomed. Depilated. Scrubbed and lotioned, smooth like a piece of ripe fruit.
He shaved me once, early on in our relationship; made me stand over him in the bath while he took a razor between my legs and slowly carved away. There, he said, that’s how I want you.
I had looked down at my new self with delight. Beloved, I thought, this is what it feels like to be beloved.
Six years in and still, in the early hours of the morning, while Sam lies and dreams, I clean my teeth and shine my face and comb my hair. I shape my eyebrows and tint my lashes and pluck away the stray hairs that plant themselves on my upper lip; I trim my cuticles and buff the dead skin from my heels, I paint my nails to match the seasons. I shave and moisturize and soften my skin, I spray perfume and roll deodorant and use special intimate wipes to make me smell like flowers instead of a woman. All this I do so that when he wakes, I am transformed, when he wants me, I am ready. All yours, I say. I am all yours.
It is a lie; a small part I keep for myself.
It must have been around noon when I realized I was hungry. I left the café and strolled around the cobbled back streets in the glare of the sun. It’s a pleasant city, I suppose. Charming, contained in a way that New York is not, and never can be. Here there is none of that current in the air, the pulse of lust and need and ruthlessness. Of longing and secrets.
Around Götgatan I spied a café with a neat little row of quiches sitting in the window. I went inside and ordered at the counter, sat down at a small table in the corner. The waitress brought over my food and laid down cutlery and a napkin. Tack, I said, and she smiled sweetly. The quiche was delicate, not too heavy. It felt strange and delicious to eat alone; a forbidden delight from another life.
I ordered a coffee after I finished, not wanting it to end just yet. The café was filling up with people; I saw the waitress glance over at me. She came up to the table.
Would you mind? she said. This man would like to eat something.
It was the same man from earlier.
May I? He indicated the free chair opposite me.
I smiled. Of course.
You are American, he said, as he sat.
Yes, I said. Sorry about that.
He laughed. I tried to recall the movements of the woman from earlier, the way she touched her lips, delicate and deliberate. I brushed my fingers against my mouth. I watched him watch me.
What are you doing here, he said, business or pleasure?
Oh. I smiled. Always pleasure.
Again my fingers went to my lips.
You remind me of someone, he said.
Yes, I said, I hear that all the time.
You’re on vacation? he asked.
I hesitated. There was something I had to take care of here, I said.
I wanted to sound enigmatic and mysterious. The kind of woman a man like him aches for. I took a sip of coffee, I touched my lips. I smiled sadly and looked suddenly toward the street, into the middle distance, as though recalling some dark secret or heartache within.
Yes, I had it. I watched him watch me and shift in his seat.
In New York, there were countless days like this. It’s easy in a city that size. You never see the same person twice. Never have to be the same person. Sitting in the park, strolling through the Met, whiling away a few hours in the public library. I was the woman in the red dress, or the blue coat, or the scarf with red lips printed all across it. I was a lawyer, a grad student, a midwife, an anthropologist, a gallerist; I was Dominique or Anna or Lena or Francesca. I was all of these women. Everyone but Merry. It was always a rush, a moment belonging only to me; a spectacle for my own entertainment. My own secret pleasure. Only occasionally did it go too far.
Even as a child, I loved nothing better than to perform in front of the bathroom mirror. Sometimes I’d steal one of my mother’s lipsticks or some of her jewelry. I’d pretend to be a model or an actress, sometimes a lovesick girlfriend or a wife betrayed. I liked to watch myself, the transformation into someone else. I’d try out different voices and accents, different expressions on my face. I could play out scenes for hours on end. It never grew dull. It still doesn’t. Perhaps this is my gift. The ability to slip in and out of selves, as though they were dresses hanging in a wardrobe, waiting to be tried on and twirled about.
I’m Lars, by the way, the man said.
He extended his hand and I let it linger in mine. While he ate his lunch, I entertained him with stories from my recent trip to the Maldives.
Can you imagine, I laughed, two weeks on a tropical island with only the winter wardrobe of Mr. Oleg Karpalov in my possession!
Which island? he asked.
I tried to recall Frank’s email and couldn’t. I glanced at my watch.
I have to go, I said.
He grabbed my wrist.
Wait, he said. Give me your number.
He took his phone from his pocket and wrote down the digits I offered.
I smiled.
I had won.
It was late and I had to hurry to Drottninggatan to find a department store. I needed to be Merry again. In the baby section, I threw piles of clothes over my arm. T-shirts, miniature chinos, cargo shorts with dinosaurs on the pockets, little track pants and pajama bottoms.
The phone rang and my heart sank.
Where are you? Sam asked. I thought you’d be back by now. He sounded irritated.
I apologized profusely. I had a hard time finding what I was looking for, I explained. You know I always get lost here, in the city.
Well, come back soon, he said.
Yes, Sam, I said, apologizing once more before I hung up the phone.
I paid for the baby clothes and slipped into the restroom. In front of the mirror, I wet a wad of paper and wiped off the remnants of my makeup under the bright white light. Inside one of the stalls, a woman was retching. Probably an eating disorder, I thought, though it could have been anything.
I made my way back to the car and did find myself lost – the cobbled lanes, the tasteful storefronts, the quaint boutiques and antiques shops – all of them blend into the same tepid view: spotless streets, polite pedestrians, the too-orderly flow of people and traffic. The heady freedom of earlier was already in retreat. My chest was constricting, the streets narrowing in parallel, closing me in, squeezing it all back down to size. I hate to upset Sam. It fills me with terror, any time he has a reason to find me lacking.
At last I found the parking lot. An old Roma woman sat begging at the entrance. She looked at me, sucked her teeth, and wagged a finger. A witch casting a curse.
I drove home too fast. When I got back, Sam handed me the baby.
He hasn’t eaten yet, he said. And he needs his bath.
He did not kiss me.
Already there was a message waiting from Lars. I deleted it quickly from my phone and went to attend to my child.
Sam (#ulink_f1cbc9db-cc5e-59e8-a61a-488932d3822d)
Email this morning from the guys in Uppsala. They’re going with another director for the snow tires. Assholes. Top of the class, I was, graduated cum fucking laude. Fellowships, scholarships. Tenure. Now this.
It’s all right. I’ll get there. Just got to stick it out. Keep at it.
From the studio I could hear Conor whining. He’s been out of sorts for a couple of days.
Teething, Merry says. She tells me it’s normal. She read it in the parenting book I bought her.
Let’s take a long walk, I said. I want to encourage Merry to exercise. Tone up. Lose the baby weight that’s still sticking to her. Discipline, I say, all it takes.
I lifted Con into the backpack and hoisted it onto my shoulders. Merry put sunscreen and a hat on him, and dabbed the back of my neck so I wouldn’t burn.
We closed the door behind us and made for the forest trails that surround the reserve. The day was warm but not too hot, a low hum of insects and birds. We walked in silence.
A sweat will do us good, I said, heading for one of the more difficult routes.
Merry walked behind us. I could hear her breathing.
Beautiful, I said. The summers here are incredible.
Merry was quiet.
Hon?
Sam, I say it all the time, don’t I. It’s beautiful. It’s perfect. It’s amazing.
Jesus, I said. Guess you’re not pregnant this month after all.
What?
Take it easy, I said. I’m joking. Clearly this is some heavy-duty PMS, right? Your foul mood. Hormones in a spin.
I laughed. You women, always so sensitive. And you think you want to run the world.
I walked on, leaving her to stew. I won’t indulge these moods; she knows better than to think that I will.
Tuesday morning and I’m taking a hike with a baby strapped to my back. Guess this is life in Sweden for you. Transculturation. In anthropological terms, it’s what happens when you move to a new society and adopt the culture.
Professor. I always liked being called that. Guess it doesn’t work so well out here. Hey, Professor Hurley, can you zoom in on the snow tires?
Conor started to whine and I stopped to check on him.
He’d pulled off the hat and was damp with sweat. Merry caught up to us.
He feels really warm, I said.
He’s fine, Merry replied. Just needs some water. She gave him a bottle and he pushed it away. She poured some water onto a cloth and nestled it against his neck to keep him cool.
Wonder-mom, I said. You know all the tricks.
Sorry about earlier, she said. You’re probably right. It must be PMS.
We looped back along the trail and made our way down toward the lake.
I bent to feel the temperature. Icy, I said. Give it a couple of weeks, it’ll be just right.
Merry stood staring into the endless blue of the water, transfixed.
Thinking about going in? I teased.
Something like that, she said vaguely, and stayed a moment longer, lost in her head.
Back at home, Merry prepared a light lunch, cheese and fresh bread, a salad. She seemed to be distracted still. She forgot the lemon in my soda, the oil for the salad.
You’re not yourself today, I said, and she appeared to shrink.
I’m sorry, Sam, I don’t know what it is.
Has Frank confirmed dates yet? I asked, trying to brighten her mood.
No, she said, shaking her head. Something about wrapping up work. Apparently she’s taking a sabbatical.
Bread’s good, I said, and she smiled.
It’s a new recipe I tried.
That’s my wife, I said. Always outdoing herself.
Merry beamed. She needs this kind of reassurance, I guess. Or she loses sight of herself, starts to fade.
Hey, I said. I got that job.
Oh, Sam, she said, I knew you would.
After lunch, she laid Conor down for a nap and emerged back outside with a couple of blankets, which she spread out on the lawn.
There, now we can take a little nap too. She smiled, squinting her eyes against the light, looking at me the way she does.
Merry, I said, it’s Tuesday afternoon. I’ve got work to do.
I left her alone on the empty lawn and went inside. In the darkened studio, I sat and watched other people’s videos on the thirty-inch monitor I bought in anticipation of my new career. I read my emails. There was one from Columbia, an invitation to apply for an upcoming grant. Must be an old mailing list.
After an hour or so, I pulled back the blinds to peer outside. Merry was still sitting on the blanket, cross-legged and facing the house. No sign of any particular pleasure. No sign of anything much at all.
How I love this woman, I thought.
Merry (#ulink_e7a10830-6a06-5c99-a61c-37c3206da3af)
I lay in the bath, submerged in water that had turned too cool. The body under water, the way it is floating a nd weightless and expanded all at once. Corpses they pull from the water are always unrecognizable, aren’t they, bloated inflated creatures, blimplike parodies of their once-human form. I shuddered, and then stilled myself below the surface. So pale. So slight. There is so little of me. I take up almost no space.
In front of the mirror, my mother’s first eyes stared back at me, the ones that were exiled for growing old and sad. Or maybe it was not sadness, but rage that she was trying to disguise. Rage at my father for filling his days with work and his nights with other women.
You marry your father, this is what they tell us. This is what you pray will be untrue. I sometimes think of Sam on all his business trips, so much time to squander while the baby and I are marooned here alone, left to our own devices and wicked ways. He has a history, to put it mildly, a habit of straying. But I dare not mention it. I dare not reveal any concern that he is not what he says – a different man over here, a better man. What do I care, anyway? And what right do I have to judge him. I am no innocent myself.
I am no innocent in anything.
I stood and watched my bare chest heave and shake, the breasts undulating, pendulous. Lower than before, bigger and rounder. Sam strokes them with adoration.
Mother’s breasts now, he says, as though their divine purpose has been revealed at last.
I breastfed the baby for six full months, tortured milk from my cracked, engorged nipples. Sometimes the pain was so great I had to scream. The baby did not notice.
In the hospital right after he was born, the nurses wanted me to hold him, to bond him to me, flesh against flesh. Latching. Suckling. Feeding. Everything primal and exposed. You are an animal like you’ve always been.
Cow, sow, bitch; bloody and ruined.
In my arms, the baby kept rooting for my nipples, pink and downy like a truffle pig.
The milk would not come. The body would not comply. The nurses brought different pumps and a lactation consultant called Eve. She gave me little white pills to swallow. She told me to keep holding the baby close, to keep his skin on my skin, to keep his toothless mouth in proximity to my milkless breasts.
How am I here? Still I don’t quite know. I feel something leaking out of me daily, slow wafts of weightlessness and life. A little here, a little there. Sometimes it’s in response to something benign, like Sam’s ceaseless enthusiasm for these shiny new lives, or his tireless adulation of the baby and his latest smile or almost-comprehensible word. Other times it’s a moment, a glimpse of my life reflected back at me through a window or a mirror. This is you. This is your life. This is your allowance for happiness and joy. There’s nothing wrong with the picture except everything.
If I close my eyes, I see nothing.
No. I see Frank.
So clear, so sure of herself in so many ways. Sharp about the edges. A woman defined. And me, just a blur. A frame that will not hold.
And yet. It is Frank who has always given me shape. A way to see myself clear. Because from where she is standing, the view is spectacular. Something to covet. Something to yearn for, with that deep, guttural longing that knows it can never be properly filled. Best friend. Yes, she really must be.
In the living room, I sat and wrote out a list of everything I’ll need to do for her visit. New bed linens, soft-touch pillows and throws. Some woven baskets and succulents in stone pots to warm up the room. Maybe a framed print or two, something graphic and abstract, or an ink drawing from one of the designer homeware stores around Söder.
From the wall, I felt six extra pairs of eyes on me, Sam’s masks, hollow and terrifying. I checked them once, for hidden cameras. Those nanny cams that people use to spy on their babysitters. I’d had a sudden flash of an idea, that Sam might be watching. Might be making even more certain to miss nothing of my parenting skills. He does like to be in control. I took them off the wall and examined them closely, the faint whiff of decay coming from the wood. There weren’t any cameras behind the masks, but still, they never fail to unsettle me. To remind me that I am always under scrutiny. And now another set of eyes will be on me.
It was time for the baby’s lunch. In his room, he held his arms up to me, fraught with expectation. I looked at him, as I do. Waiting. Hoping to feel something.
I wonder if it isn’t somehow inherited. Maternal instincts, or the lack thereof. I cannot remember Maureen ever holding me. At six months old, she left me with a nurse so she could go off on a monthlong weight-loss program in Switzerland. As a child, any time I cried, she’d roll her eyes and say, It gets worse, Merry, trust me.
It was Frank’s mother, Carol, who showed me what it meant to be loved. To be mothered. How I adored her. The smell of her kitchen, the sturdiness of her body, its ability to hold you firm and rock away any number of sorrows. My mother would deposit me at Frank’s house as though it were a day-care center, waving to Carol from the car because she didn’t want to endure stepping inside their shabby Brentwood living room. They’d met through the husbands. My father, surgeon in chief at Cedars, and Frank’s father, Ian, a gynecologist.
I’d barely be out of the car with my little overnight bag and my mother would be reversing away, hurrying off to lunch with the girls or some act of maintenance. Hairdresser or nail salon or day spa; sometimes it was for a stretch of a few days while she recuperated from a procedure or detoxed at one of her retreats. You’re just the best, Carol, my mother would sing, but any time they bumped into one another at a social event, she’d pretend not to know her.
I longed for her never to return, so that I could stay always with Carol, wrapped in her arms, comforted by the sound of her soft southern drawl, safe and warm in the only place that ever felt like a home. My mother always came back for me, and always we regarded each other with that first brief look of disappointment: You again.
In his crib, the baby had turned his attention to Bear. The two of them appeared to be deep in conversation.
I watched. I imagined Frank, seeing my son for the first time, the soft curls starting to collect behind his ears, the gummy smile punctuated with sharp points of new teeth; those sparkling eyes, the fat belly he loves to have tickled. Those pudgy hands that grab and pull at everything in sight. The smell of him newly bathed or sound asleep, the milky sighs and wet open kisses, the tiny arms that reach around your neck to hold you in warm, exquisite embrace.
My child. My son.
I lifted him up into my arms and showered him with all the love I had.
Sam (#ulink_361a4e7a-e4b4-5fb0-8137-7381ba80fab3)
Oh, Samson, you can’t honestly tell me that you’re happy over there.
My mother on the phone, calling from the States.
Samson, I know you.
I’ve told you, Mother, it’s wonderful here. I wish you’d come over and see for yourself.
She won’t, thankfully.
It’s a long flight, she said.
You’ve never even met your grandson.
Even this is not enough to persuade her. She cannot get over the fact that I left. She wants to punish me for it. Or maybe this is the extent to which she loathes Merry. She doesn’t even want to meet our son.
She sighed. That goddamn Ida, she said.
She left me a house, I said. She was a nice woman.
Please, she hissed. It’s thanks to her I’m alone and you’re a million miles away.
You’re being mean-spirited, I said.
Ida was a manipulative bitch, I always said so. Only married my father so she could stay in the country. And then she does this, leaves my son a house so he’ll move to the other side of the world.
Anyway, she said, they’re all the same.
Who? I said.
Women.
The line was quiet.
Samson, she said slowly. I played bridge with Myra last week.
I sucked in my breath.
You remember her daughter. Josie Rushton, from Columbia.
She paused.
It’s just gossip, I said, knowing what was coming.
But she said you were—
Gossip, I said.
That’s not why you left, she said. That’s not what you’re doing there, son, is it? Running away from your problems. I know it wouldn’t be the first one. I know you like your—
I’m going now, Mother, I said, and put down the phone.
I went outside. The calls with my mother usually end like this. Me in a rage. I opened the door to the barn at the edge of the garden. Ida’s boxes still piled up inside. A lawnmower, a canoe that needs to be stripped and painted. The list of things to do is endless. At least the house is livable now, the garden in check.
God, if I think of the day we arrived and saw what a state it was all in. A boarded-up house half falling apart, a garden overgrown, a tangle of thorns and rotting trees and sharp edges waiting to cut you to pieces. Merry pregnant, me circling the property in a daze as though waiting for it all to come into focus. It’s a wonder we didn’t run away.
The house was virtually uninhabitable – the few remaining pieces of Ida’s furniture covered in sheets brown with dust, the windows cracked, the roof tiles falling down. We covered our mouths with scarves and pulled off the sheets one by one, shoved open the windows and the doors and tried to let the fresh Swedish air do its work. I quickly realized how little I’d thought about logistics like beds and towels and kettles. Water, power, blankets for the cold. We had nothing and nowhere to sleep. No food, nowhere to curl up after more than twenty-four hours of airports and flights.
What are we doing here, Sam? Merry said, her eyes shining with tears and fright. I think it was the first time she ever looked at me that way. Like I didn’t have all the answers.
We drove the rental car into town and stopped at three guesthouses before we found somewhere with a vacancy. We left the luggage in the car, found a little café on the main street, and ordered burgers and milk shakes. By two in the afternoon we were back in the room, fast asleep and not to wake until the next evening, even though the jetlag ought to have kept us up through the night.
On the third day, we got up early and drove to the big supermarket on the outskirts of town. We loaded up the car with cleaning products and groceries and candles and a couple of cheap beach towels. We had the water and power set up later that day, and then we went to work with the mops and the window cleaner and the polish, every corner and crevice of the house we scrubbed and shined, every inch of dust we caught and dispensed with, every sign of neglect we reversed and restored. We fitted new light bulbs and tested the old fridge and stove; we ran the taps to clear out the pipes and washed the huge glass windows with soap and water. Together we wrote endless lists of the things we needed to buy for each room, the repairs that needed to be made; every time you looked there was something else.
We bought a car from a dealership in Uppsala and drove to the nearest Ikea, made frequent trips to the hardware store and the garden center. I built the baby’s crib and painted the walls of his room. I moved in one of Ida’s old armchairs, we bought a woven blanket and cushions to make it comfortable. In Stockholm we shopped for strollers and car seats, bath chairs and diaper bags and thermometers and educational rattles. The prices in krona made your eyes water but we loaded up the cart and handed over the card to swipe.
I bought a wheelbarrow and a toolbox, a power drill and a ladder to fix the roof. The sweat dripped off me; I tied a bandanna around my forehead and removed my shirt. I was pure alpha, man on a mission. It was exhilarating.
Outside, I pulled weeds and hacked down waist-high bushes. I measured frames and bricked in vegetable patches and rebuilt fallen walls.
Fixing, making, shaping. Building our new lives one drop of sweat at a time.
You can’t honestly tell me you’re happy over there.
My mother refuses to believe any American can be happy anywhere but America. She sends over care packages from the States, all the things she thinks we’re missing. Boxed macaroni and cheese dinners, triple-chocolate-chip cookies, hot sauce. In the last package, she included an American flag, just in case we needed reminding.
You were all I had, son, and now you’re gone. With that woman.
The women, the women. Always it’s the women.
If I think about the part that’s really addictive, the part that’s the sweetest, it’s the way they look when you’ve hurt them. The way they crack and break. Even the strongest woman is just a little girl in disguise, desperate for you to notice something about her. So hungry for it, she’ll do anything you ask. Low things.
You’re a cruel man, Sam.
I have heard this more than once. It always feels good, though I can’t say why.
In Ida’s shed, I looked for the box marked Train Set and removed the bottle I keep stashed away inside. I took a long sip, then another. I examined the wooden trains; they must have belonged to Ida’s brother. There was a story about him I can’t quite recall. Drowned in the lake or stung by a bee. His trains carefully carved and painted, each carriage a different shape and shade. A labor of love.
Probably his father’s. This is what fathers do. I tested out the train on a little stretch of wooden track. Chug-a-chug-a-choo. Conor will love it. I took another sip. It dawned on me suddenly that Ida’s dead brother is the only reason I’ve been left the house. One man’s misery is another man’s fortune, and all.
I’ll need to call my mother back. Make up a vague apology. Get her to wire over more money. Weave in some guilt about her not bothering to know her grandson. That’ll do it.
Our cash is running out, not that Merry knows. Not her department, I always say. Funny, I always thought she’d inherit a decent amount from her mother. But turns out old Gerald wasn’t as astute an investor as he was a surgeon. Bad decisions, big losses. After he died, Maureen lived outside her means; in the end there was nothing left but a load of back taxes and a series of unpaid aesthetician bills.
I took out my phone. Tomorrow? I wrote.
Yes, came Malin’s reply.
She asked me once, Do you love your wife?
Yes, I said, of course.
She nodded sadly but said nothing more.
I downed a final drink in the barn and went inside.
Merry (#ulink_5d0f14f4-1f26-5198-8e89-180e3876238c)
An email arrived this morning from Frank. Her flight details confirmed. See you soon, she wrote. I felt a wave of unexpected dread, a sort of preemptive exhaustion. Frank in need, always hungry for approval. Always watching to see if there are any slips. Continuity errors. She loves to catch me out.
No, I must focus on the good. Her face when she sees the house. When she holds the baby. When she’s confronted with all the parts of her that are lacking.
Just like that, she will be sure of nothing.
And I will have it all.
I wrote down the details and deleted her email. I clicked on the website I visit most days. I came upon it by accident. An anonymous forum. Mothers, all of us, but not the ones who share recipes for birthday cake and ideas for Halloween craft projects.
I don’t write anything but I read it all.
Val in Connecticut who drops buttons on the carpet in the hopes her baby daughter might choke on one, dropping a single button each day so that it will be down to fate in the end. Anonymous in Leeds who calls and then hangs up on social services every morning, trying to work up the courage to hand over the twins she cannot bear.
Pretend women, playing at being mothers.
Sam emerged from the studio and I quickly exited the page. He came up behind me and pressed his hands into my shoulders, kissing the top of my head.
Who’s Christopher? he said, as an email popped onto the screen.
Just an old client, I said. He probably doesn’t know I’ve left the States.
Better tell him, Sam said, and walked off.
I read the email and then deleted it. I had an overwhelming need suddenly to get out of the house. I pulled on running gear and went to find Sam. I’m going for a hike, I announced.
He was taken aback, but thrilled. Fantastic, he said. Should I watch Con?
Oh no, I said, I really want to have some mommy-son time.
Strange, how the words come so easily, how the untruths roll off the tongue while the rest stays locked away.
You’re such a great mom, Sam said.
I nodded. I’m doing my best.
And I am, I am! I must be, because why else would it all feel this torturous – as though I were day and night on stage, under the harsh lights, face melting, body corseted into an ill-fitting borrowed costume. The same show, again and again, enter stage left, deliver the lines you have rehearsed. And into the crowd, looking out at a sea of faces, searching, hoping – desperately needing to hear the sounds of applause. Or even just a single clap. I see you. You exist.
I settled the baby in his stroller and pulled the door shut behind me. We walked down the path in the direction of the lake, then veered left onto the dirt road that leads to the forest trails. It was a fair climb up the first hill, to the flattish clearing of forest with views of the south side of the lake.
In the last months of my pregnancy, I would wake some nights and find myself here, having wandered through the house in the half darkness, out the door and through the garden and down to the gate, a trance that took me inexplicably all the way to the start of the hiking trails, and out to this clearing. I’d cut my feet on gravel and stones and the pain would make me wince and cramp and cry out. I was weighted down with the life inside, an awkward shape, clunky and dense in the darkened forest, knocking into trees and branches as I lumbered along. There were noises and movements in the night but none of them scared me as much as what was inside. Sometimes in the mornings, Sam would find a thin trail of blood leading from the front door to my side of the bed; nocturnal Odette turned back into the cursed swan. How did I get here, how did I get here? I could not understand it.
It was good to be outside in the cool and the quiet, just the trees and the soft calls of insects at work. I looked around. There was not another soul about. A cabin nearby was boarded up, the windows shut, wooden beams nailed across them. A gingerbread house, I thought, and perhaps inside, a cannibal witch.
I looked into the stroller. The baby had fallen asleep. In the soft dappled sunlight, he looked almost painterly, the goldenhaloed child of devotional art. I touched a finger to his nose. He stirred but did not wake. I considered the stroller. I remembered the salesman in Stockholm describing state-ofthe-art suspension, a fixed front wheel, pneumatic tires. Mountain Jogger, it says on the handlebar. Built for this terrain.
I breathed in the morning air, fresh and warm; held out my arms as though awaiting some divine benediction. Then I began to run. Harder, faster, farther and farther into the trees. Around me, the pines loomed tall and ancient and indifferent; the ground underfoot crunched with fallen leaves and weeds and thick-growing lichen, everything alive and wild, a world unto its own.
I did not look back. I ran and ran, as though running for my life. I ran and ran, until everything ached and stung – heart and lungs and head. I wondered briefly if the baby would be all right, out here in the woods, exposed to all the elements. But surely it could only do us good. Hearty exertion, fresh forest air. I pushed on. The sweat poured off me in sheets. I pushed, I pushed; I ran. I thought: I may never stop. I imagined how easy it would be to keep going, to keep running, pushing farther and farther north, to Uppsala, then Gävle, then Sundsvall. And farther still. All the way to the far north, to Kiruna and across into Finland, to Kilpisjärvi. From there you keep going, Alta, then Nordkapp; I’ve looked on the map, nothing but space and sky, the water and the ice. Svalbard. Greenland. Land so barren you would surely feel like the first person to set foot on earth. Or the last.
All those voyages north, the polar expeditions into nothingness and white. Searching for the unknown, for places to name and land to call one’s own. Or maybe it was just blankness they were after, a world made new.
I ran and ran, stumbling occasionally over uneven ground and unfamiliar terrain; rocks and roots and the stumps of felled trees. I ran until I could no longer breathe, until my legs could no longer move me forward or support my weight. I collapsed to the ground. I gasped air into my shocked lungs; I gulped at it like it was water. More, more, pounding heart, ready to burst right out of its fragile cage of bone. I held my hand over it. It would not quieten. It was the feeling of death. Or maybe of being alive.
I lay in the soil, leaves at my back, millions upon millions of subterranean creatures busy belowground with secret endeavors. A discarded husk of snail shell I held and then crushed, the sharp points digging into my fingers. My breath was steadying slowly.
And still, my heart raced. The feeling of being free. Here where I am no one and everyone, a mass of cells and atoms like everything else that lives and breathes and is of this earth. It all came flooding in, the noise of the silence and the stillness and the smell of life uninterrupted. I tried to inhale it, to steal some for myself.
I don’t know how long I lay on the ground.
Before the baby and I made our way back home, I paused to take a photograph on my phone. Something about the light and the colors compelled me. Perhaps I would send it to Frank. A taste of what’s in store.
Wasn’t that fun, I said to the baby, who had woken. Wasn’t that a fun adventure for us.
He gifted me with a smile, and I was reassured. His cheeks were a little flush, his hair matted to his skull from all the movement. I made a note to double-check the safety of the forest, to rule out any encounters with wild animals. But I shouldn’t think there’s anything sinister in these parts.
Did you have a nice bonding session? Sam asked as we walked through the door.
I smiled. I felt genuinely happy. It was just what we needed, I said.
Merry (#ulink_7640b27c-977b-5c5f-8de8-1835ac153686)
We had a visitor today. Sam was in Oslo; he took a flight late last night. Before he left, he paused a moment at the door, his new blazer buttoned up, his new sneakers blinding white on his feet. I suppose he is trying to fit in.
I’m sorry, he said. I know it’s a lot of travel. I know you’re alone a lot – too much, probably.
It’s unlike him, to apologize for something. I was caught off-guard. I didn’t know what to say.
It’s all right, I replied eventually. It’s just until you’ve established yourself, isn’t it. You’re doing it all for us.
He looked like he might say more, but instead he kissed my cheek, chaste and strange.
I slept soundly, all alone in the big bed. I spread out, I rolled over onto Sam’s side, smelled him in the sheets. There was a stain, the dried markings of our reproductive quest. Well, his. I’m not sure how much longer I can hold the wolf from the door, how much more time he’ll allow to pass before he sends me off to the doctor to be examined and explored for faults and flaws.
It seemed to happen so quickly before, he said.
It’s different every time, I assured him.
I dreamed of Frank, a dream or a memory, I don’t quite know. The two of us were in my childhood home, that tower of marble and glass. In my bedroom, I had a cabinet with a collection of porcelain dolls inside, beautiful, delicate, fragile things, so inviting for little girls to hold and touch, and yet they stayed always locked away, unmoving behind the glass.
They’re not for playing, my mother said. They’re special dolls just for looking. If you play with them, they will break.
Trust her to have filled my bedroom with immovable faces. I could never understand the point.
Frank in the dream had the cabinet unlocked, and a doll in her lap – my favorite one – the dark-haired little girl with red painted lips and a blue organza dress. She wore a pearl bracelet and shoes that could be removed from her toeless porcelain feet. Why do you have her, Frank? I shouted. I pulled. The doll was mine. I was crying in the dream; it was too unfair.
Carol came running into the room and took the doll away from us both. There, learn to share or no one plays, she said. Her dress was full of blood. She was trailing her insides all over the white carpet, the womanly parts that killed her in the end.
Carol, Carol. I think I was crying in my sleep.
In the morning, I went into the baby’s room. He was lying on his back, eyes open, watching me. Big eyes unblinking. What do they see, I wonder. What secrets will they one day spill?
I dressed in my running clothes and sat him in the stroller. We go every day now. I salivate for it. I cannot do without my little escape into the woods.
When we returned, I lifted him up. He needed changing, his diaper full and sodden. I lay him on the bed and closed the door behind me; settled onto the sofa to watch my shows. It was supposed to be a laundry and linens day, but I wanted to enjoy the empty house while I still could. I must have spent four hours in front of the screen, following my plastic housewife counterparts in Miami.
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