It would make more sense if Mom had been the one who adopted me.
What does that mean?
Does she know Kerstin isn’t her biological mother? Does she want me to know she knows? Who is this Kerstin? And what does she know?
It’s impossible to concentrate. I have no idea what the group is talking about anymore. There is too much moving through my mind.
Alice, everything that happened when she disappeared and the aftermath.
What happened later, twelve years ago, when my life fell apart again.
The visit to Strandgården.
Lina Niemi’s report.
My own death notice.
Who would put something like that in someone’s mailbox?
Is it a warning?
A threat?
Henrik was upset. Mostly because I didn’t think it was necessary to report it to the police. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for a therapist to receive threats. But this is the first time I’ve received a threatening letter. Whoever is behind it was at our house. He put it into our mailbox himself. But the idea that someone intends to physically harm me seems improbable. Nobody hates me enough to go that far. As far as I know.
And what could the police do? The letter is handwritten, there’s no signature, no return address.
Henrik assumed it was from Lina or her parents, the only client in my years as a psychotherapist who’s been openly hostile.
Maybe he’s right. It could be Lina’s parents, one or both, who wrote it. It could be Lina herself. Or it could be completely unrelated. Another patient of mine. It could be someone sitting in this group.
It could be Isabelle Karlsson.
I’ve been lost in my own thoughts for far too long, so I straighten up in my chair.
Pierre is going on about social media. He can’t understand why people spend their time on Facebook or Instagram—why would forty-eight likes give your life meaning, and why do people seek confirmation for a photoshopped picture of an imagined reality. He wonders if Isabelle ever posted a picture of her “father,” with air quotes, if she wrote: I will never forget you? People do crap like that all the time. I think about you every day. Like, your mother or your cat has been dead seventeen years. It’s bullshit. People forget. There’s no way you could go seventeen years and still think about someone every day, miss someone, he says. You grieve, you move on.
“What is grief?” I say. “What is it to miss someone? When someone is taken from you, they take a piece of you with them. A piece that can never be replaced by anything else. The grief, the loss is there forever. And it hurts. It bleeds and aches. It becomes a scab, and it itches, and then it falls off. And it bleeds again. One day it becomes a scar. The wound heals, but the scar remains.”
Everyone is staring at me. The silence is oppressive.
“After a few years, sadness and loss have changed you,” I continue. “They’ve become a part of your interior. They help to form the rest of your life. No day passes without that grief being there. You never forget. It’s part of you, of who you are.”
Without looking at any of the participants in the group, I stand up and leave the room.
SEPTEMBER 2, 1994
Twenty days. The longest days of my life.
A living nightmare.
Don’t give up yet. You have to take care of yourself. You have to believe; you have to hope. That’s what everyone said in the beginning. They meant well; they were trying to be supportive, to comfort me. Their words are empty.
Now they tell me she’s gone. Alice has drowned; she no longer exists. She’s dead.
I refuse to believe it.
But my hope is gone.
It took only a second. The blink of an eye.
My little girl has disappeared forever. How can I live with that?
They are afraid of my grief. Mom, Helena, Maria. As if I might be contagious.
Daniel is silent. He won’t look me in the eye. I hate the distance between us. I wish he would scream at me, blame me as I blame myself. I know he does, but he won’t say it.
We have lost Alice. And in our grief we lost each other, too.
Stella
People are crouched under their umbrellas, hurrying down St. Eriksgatan. I step into Thelins Bakery, buy a coffee, and sit in a corner near the front. I left the building without telling Renate, without canceling my next appointment. I’ve never done that before. And this is the first time I left a therapy session early.
I put my head in my hands, stare down, and see myself reflected as a dark shadow in the black coffee. I straighten up and observe the other customers, who are either reading or in conversation with each other. We are in different worlds. We have nothing in common. My hand shakes as I lift my cup.
I must be more affected by the death notice than I realized. Somebody hates me. Someone wishes me dead. Who? And why?
Once again I go through every problem, every question. I try to sort it all out, think through it logically, but I’m too upset.
Four mothers enter and sit down at the table next to mine. They park their strollers and start to strip layers of clothes off crying and screaming babies. Over and over again they tell their children to be quiet, stop climbing on tables and chairs. They laugh, they discuss the houses they want to buy and winter vacations they want to take.
It feels like an invasion. I get up from the table without drinking my coffee and leave. I go to the left, take the stairs down to the subway, and regret that I had Henrik drive me here this morning. Wet commuters squeeze in around me on the train headed toward Alvik. The air is stuffy, smells damp and sweaty. Everybody wants to be home already, or at their destinations. Everyone wants to be anywhere but here.
The back of my neck burns, as if someone behind me is staring.
I turn around, study the other passengers. Nobody is paying any attention to me.
I switch to the bus at Alvik. The rain flows down the windows. The streetlights shine along the wet streets. The outside world is blurry and diffuse. The sky is dark and indifferent. I get off and walk homeward in the rain.
Again, I have the unpleasant sensation of being watched. I stop and turn around but see no one. I speed up my pace.
I hang my coat in the hall, lean my purse against the bureau. The house is empty. Milo should be home soon, Henrik will come shortly after, if he’s not working late. I should cook dinner. Can’t. Won’t.
Why didn’t I let Mom make enough food for the whole week? I should call Henrik, tell him to buy something on his way home. I never know when to expect him nowadays.
I go into the living room and stand by the window. I lean my forehead against the cold glass and close my eyes.
A glass of wine. A hot bath. Then sleep. That’s what I need. The symptoms are clear, and if I don’t take them seriously, this will end in disaster.
I open my eyes.
A man is standing in the street. He’s wearing a dark, shapeless raincoat with the hood obscuring his face. His arms hang rigidly at his sides.
I gasp for breath and take a step back. The man watching me doesn’t move. I turn around, grab the phone from the living room table to call the police. When I look back, nobody’s there.
The wind whips the trees; the rain pummels the windows.
I stand with the phone in my hands, ready to call. I look out over the garden, across the street.
The man in the raincoat is gone.
Kerstin
I’ve probably spent half an hour organizing the shelves in the nursing home’s storage room. Messes make me crazy. If everyone just pitched in to keep things tidy, just did a little bit, then I wouldn’t end up having to do this.
But I like routines. I’ve always found them important. Going to work, doing the same tasks every day, it makes me feel calm. It gives me a sense of purpose.
Anna-Lena sticks her head in. “Kerstin, do you have a second?”
“When I’m done in here,” I answer.
What does she want now? I look at the time and notice she came in forty minutes early today. She often does that. And it doesn’t matter if anyone notices. Efficient, responsible Anna-Lena. She’s only thirty-five, but she thinks she’s better than the rest of us. However, I’ve never seen her cleaning up the storeroom. It will never happen. She’s far too important to concern herself with such things.
I arrange the cleaning sprays on the shelf in neat lines. I’m in no hurry. I lock up the storage room and walk leisurely through the corridor. I don’t intend to stress.
“You needed something?” I say when I get to her office.
“Sit down.” Anna-Lena gestures to the chair on the opposite side of the desk. She finishes what she’s working on before turning to me. “I’ve been told things aren’t going so well lately.”
“I think things have been exceptionally calm. Who said otherwise?”
“It doesn’t matter who.” A searching look, a regretful smile. “You’ve been impatient and hard on the residents.”
“So this is about me? I’m the problem?” Anna-Lena refuses to meet my eye and fiddles with a few papers. “I’m sorry to hear that,” I continue. “What exactly does this person claim to have seen?”
“Well, she didn’t say anything specific, but—”
“Then it’s hard to talk about it,” I interrupt. “Right? If she didn’t see me doing anything wrong.”
“Well, she has that perception. And Greta has complained.”
“Greta?” I laugh to show what I think of her. “What doesn’t she complain about? That woman thinks everyone is wrong. She’s never satisfied. You would know that if you ever worked the floor.”