Tell Me You're Mine(22)

“No clue. Perhaps. Probably.”

I wonder why we’re really here. As our food arrives, I take a drink of my wine. Try to relax. I look out over the Riddarfjärden bay. I’m sitting in a nice restaurant with the man I’m married to.

“Is it good?” Henrik asks and takes a bite from my plate.

“Quite good,” I answer.

“How’s work these days?”

I spin my wineglass. “It’s fine. And yours?”

“There’s a lot on my plate right now, as you know, but it’ll get better soon,” he says. Silence. We behave like two bad copies of ourselves. “Have you heard anything lately from the Health and Social Care Inspectorate?”

Here it comes. He invited me here for a serious conversation. He thinks my behavior has something to do with the inspection. I poke at my food. I wish he’d waited.

“No, not yet,” I answer, letting go of my fork and pulling my cardigan up onto my shoulders.

“No need to be defensive,” he says. “Since you don’t talk to me anymore, I have to ask. But it was stupid for me to bring it up now. Forget it.”

Forget it? A cloud will hang over the table for the rest of the dinner if I don’t say anything.

“Why does this feel so tense?” I wonder.

“You’re the tense one,” he replies. “You’ve been both tense and annoyed for a while.”

“I know I may have been preoccupied and absentminded,” I say.

“Absentminded? You’ve been completely absent. You don’t respond when Milo or I talk to you. You forget things, you have outbursts. And yesterday? What was that about?”

“It’s been a strange few weeks, I know,” I say. “But this has nothing to do with Lina. I’ve seen that man twice. I’ve received a disguised death threat. But that’s not all. There’s something I have to tell you.”

Henrik shakes his head. “We’ll talk about it later, okay? Do you want some coffee?”

I don’t. I want to leave. Before I can answer, he gestures to the waiter. I look out over the dock outside while Henrik asks for two coffees, no dessert, please. The sun is reflecting on the water. It’s a beautiful evening. And the distance between Henrik and me is only growing.

There is no turning back. I have to tell him. When we’re alone again, I look him in the eye.

“Henrik,” I say, putting a hand on his arm. He stares at me, waiting for me to continue. “I’ve found Alice.”

Henrik puts down his napkin, but continues looking at me.

I continue. “This time I’m right. I know I’m right.”

I notice that I’m too loud. The couple closest to us has fallen silent, and they’re looking our way.

Henrik glances to the side. Then out over the water.

“I didn’t intend to say anything,” he says. “Not here. I wanted to talk about it later.”

“Say what?” I ask.

“I had a visitor at work today.”

Henrik’s gaze is steady. My stomach aches. I have no idea what to expect, but I can see in his face it’s something serious.

He says, “A woman visited me at the office this morning. She’s worried about her daughter.”

“Her daughter?”

“She’s in therapy with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“The girl has changed since she met you. You seem, and I’m just quoting”—Henrik holds up his fingers—“‘inappropriately interested in her.’”

“Are you serious?” I raise my voice, and the couple looks at us again. I continue more quietly. “Who is this concerning?”

He doesn’t answer my question. Instead he says, “This woman feels you’re turning the girl against her. Asking leading questions about her upbringing.”

“Isabelle,” I whisper.

Henrik leans forward, tapping his finger on the table. “Please tell me you don’t think this girl Isabelle is Alice.”

“The woman who visited you, what was her name?” I ask.

“Kerstin Karlsson. She begged me to talk to you. Her daughter doesn’t want to listen; she’s obviously captivated by you. According to her mother.”

“Why did she contact you?” I ask. “She could have talked to me directly.”

He shrugs. “Does it matter? She was worried,” he says.

“Guess why,” I say. “Guess why, Henrik. She’s trying to bury this. She’s trying to hide what she’s done.”

Henrik looks questioningly at me. “So Kerstin Karlsson kidnapped your daughter? Then manipulated me so you wouldn’t find out the truth? Doesn’t make sense. You are completely wrong.”

“How do you know that? How do you know?”

“Because it’s not believable. Because no one can just steal someone else’s child in this country. Records are kept on everything. You can’t just show up with a child without someone noticing. And I’ve been to Alice’s grave. She’s dead, Stella. What you went through must have been harder than anyone can imagine. But Alice is gone. It’s horrible, unbearable. But you have to live with it.”

“I’ve never thought she was dead, you know that very well. But you think I’ve gone crazy? That’s what you mean? That in my insane state I’ve made this up?” I slam the glass on the table too hard. The couple next to us has started whispering.

“Settle down, Stella. Settle down.”

“You trust someone you’ve never met more than me. You totally dismiss everything I have to say.”

“Don’t try to put all this on me. You have been acting strange lately. And the woman I talked to was genuinely worried about her child. She was desperate. She didn’t know who to turn to.”

“And you just buy what she has to say straightaway?” My voice wavers. The anger I feel is about to boil over. “You think I’m brainwashing a patient because I’m delusional? You have no confidence in me whatsoever?”

Henrik leans over the table. “You yourself told me you think you’ve found Alice. Again. What the hell am I supposed to think, Stella?” He stretches out for my hand. I pull it away. Cross my arms and look past him.

“This time is different. This time I know I’m right.”

“It’s been more than twenty years,” he says.

“Isabelle is Alice! Should I ignore that?”

Henrik leans backward. He folds his napkin and unfolds it again.

“Stop playing with that fucking napkin,” I hiss.

He throws it down.

“You want me to believe that you’ve found your missing daughter,” he says. “A girl you haven’t seen since she was a year old. You see her in one of your patients. Whose mother is worried about how her therapy is progressing. This is serious, Stella. Say you understand that. Say at least that you understand how it sounds.”

“I’m not making this up,” I say. “This is not in my imagination.” But I hear how shrill and pleading my voice is. I don’t sound the least bit believable. Not even to myself. More diners are looking at us.

“You can’t continue to be her therapist,” Henrik says. “Not if you think she’s your daughter.”

“I already know that.”

“Why haven’t you talked to me? You know how this turned out last time. How you felt. I don’t want you to have to go through that again.”

“You mean that this is a ‘relapse’?”

“I worry about you.”

“You think I’m sick. I need to be committed.”

Henrik runs his hands over his face. “We should go now.”

He looks around for the waiter. It feels like he’s stuck a knife in my back. He’s sitting opposite me. But he’s light-years away. We have never been so far apart.

“And you wonder why I didn’t say anything?” I say. “Because I knew it would turn out like this.”

I stand so quickly that the chair falls backward. Stumble between the tables as I run through the restaurant. Hear a thud, followed by the sound of breaking glass. The waiter I crashed into has dropped his tray. Everyone in the room is staring at me. I run toward the exit, rip open the front door, and rush back toward the car.

I drive across the Traneberg Bridge. I continue on toward Ulvsunda Road. I pass the airport and Bromma Blocks mall, pass by the Solvalla racetrack, and turn off toward Rissne. I’m thinking about Alice the whole time. I feel her inside me, an inextinguishable flame.

I drive through the suburbs of Bromsten, Spånga, and Solhem, and arrive at Hässelby. I turn left on Lövstavägen, heading home. But when I get to Vällingby, I turn off.

I stop in a parking lot and get out of the car. The sun is about to go down; the air is cool. I wrap my shawl around my neck and stuff my hands into my pockets.

She lives in one of the high-rise apartment buildings next to the mall. Maybe I was on my way here the whole time.

I see lights turn on and off, the blue glow of TV screens. The shadows of people move behind curtains, walking through rooms and looking through the windows. One of them could be Alice. Perhaps she’s standing there right now, looking down at me. Perhaps she feels like I do, that something binds us together. Something that can never be destroyed. A connection. Maybe she’s thinking about it, about me, right now.