Stella
The next morning Henrik and Milo have eaten breakfast and gone by the time I go down to the kitchen. Henrik left a plate out for me, but the coffee is cold and the juice in my glass is lukewarm. I pour them both out, throw away the sandwich, and brew new coffee.
I’m wearing makeup, my Malene Birger pants, the black ones that are slightly looser at the top and taper down the leg. A green blouse from Filippa K.
I look out the window. Everything is gray, the street, the trees, the houses, the sky. I look at the time. Half past eight. It’s Friday, I have no patients today and don’t need to go in to the clinic.
Henrik and I didn’t speak to each other after I got home last night. When I arrived he was watching a movie with Milo. I took a bath and went to bed. I pretended to be asleep when he got into bed next to me. I could tell he lay there awake, studying me. We are living in different worlds now. All communication has broken down.
But it’s not weird he would fear that I’m having a breakdown again. I have been acting strangely, as he says. I have been tense and irritated. But this is not like last time. This is real.
And if I had been able to tell him about Alice before Kerstin Karlsson scared him, maybe it would have turned out different. Maybe. Or it might not have mattered; he still might not have trusted me.
I take my coffee and head toward my office. I turn on my computer and log into Facebook. I’ve been planning to delete my account for a long time. I don’t get anything out of it. It just wastes my time and energy. My “friends” are comprised of Henrik and Pernilla, plus some family members and relatives, or people I’ve met through work or Milo, old classmates. Or acquaintances who get in touch when our friendship is confirmed, and that’s all. It’s mostly for Helena’s sake that I keep my account. She’s on Facebook all the time and usually uses it to contact me and Mom.
I write Kerstin Karlsson in the search field. The number of hits is depressing. Some I can rule out immediately. They’re too young, live in the wrong part of the country or abroad. I inspect three profiles of women a bit older than me. But I have no clue what she looks like at all. Or if she’s even on Facebook. It’s useless.
I search for Isabelle Karlsson, but there are too many with that name as well. Instead I google Isabelle Karlsson, KTH.
An article about a project she and a few others have been working on comes up. I click on it. In the group picture she’s standing at the front, her arms crossed, with her hair down and her dimple prominently displayed.
She is beautiful. Radiant. I take a screenshot of the image and save it to the cloud.
Additional searches yield nothing more. I continue with Kerstin Karlsson, Borlänge.
Not nearly as many hits as on Facebook. But which of them is the Kerstin I’m looking for?
A thought occurs to me, and I search for Hans Karlsson death.
Hans Gunnar Karlsson passed away from a stroke at age fifty-nine. He’s survived by his wife, Kerstin, and their daughter, Isabelle.
The notice is on the Dala-Demokraten website. I search for Hans Gunnar Karlsson, Borlänge.
An address in Barkargärdet. The same address as Isabelle Karlsson, twenty-two years old.
And Kerstin Karlsson, forty-seven years old.
Kerstin
Putting towels and sheets in the storage room is not my responsibility. But I do it anyway. As usual. Otherwise the laundry cart will just stand there in the corridor. People don’t want to take responsibility for anything; they’d rather shirk their duties and have somebody else clean up after them.
I can feel it in my knees as I bend forward and grab the sheet at the bottom. It wouldn’t hurt me to lose a few pounds. But you can’t do everything at once. I have too much to think about right now. The leak in the bathroom, the car acting up again, all those bills piling up. I really need to go to the dentist. And how is a normal person supposed to afford all that? The salary of an assistant nurse isn’t enough. Especially now that I’m on my own. All Hans left me were debts. The funeral took the last of our savings.
I hear a howl coming from one of the rooms; it sounds like an injured animal. I know it’s Hedvig. She’s on so many tranquilizers that it’s a wonder she can stand at all. If she doesn’t get her meds on time, she has panic attacks.
I leave the laundry and go to her room.
“Have you been hiding in the storage room again, Kerstin?” Ritva says when she sees me. “Why didn’t you respond to the alarm?” She shakes her head and goes into the kitchen.
Why don’t you answer it yourself? I think and head toward Hedvig’s room. A young employee is standing in the doorway, obviously unsure. I pat her arm and tell her I’ll take care of this.
“How are things in here, Hedvig?”
“Help me,” she cries. “Heeeelp!”
“I’m here now, take a deep breath.” I unlock the medicine cabinet. Very likely, someone forgot to give her the dose she should have gotten two hours ago. So typical. Now I have to write a report as well. I rip open the bag of pills, pour them into a red plastic cup, and hand them to Hedvig. She swallows them all at once and then throws herself onto the bed with loud cries and whimpers.
I sit down next to her, pat her hand, and whisper to her that everything will be fine. Then I put a blanket over her and tuck in her cold feet. I hush and hum in a quiet voice. After a while she settles down.
“Do you want some coffee, Hedvig? Maybe a cookie?”
“Don’t leave me. Don’t go away.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
Hedvig is eighty-five and rarely has any visitors. She lies in bed, day after day, week after week, year after year. She munches on her tranquilizers, has her outbursts, gets a little extra attention. I feel for her. Ending your days this way is shameful. It’s a shame for our welfare society. Our so-called welfare society. It doesn’t exist anymore.
I stay there, stroking her bony arms, thinking about life. It rarely turns out the way you imagine. Even a conversation with my daughter goes off the rails. I don’t understand why that happens every time we talk. I’ve gone over it many times, wondering what I’m doing wrong.
Hi, Mom.
Hi, honey. Are you on your way to therapy?
Already she’s closed herself off from me. Maybe I should have hung up immediately and called back later, but I wanted so badly to hear her voice, remind her that I’m here and that I love her. Deep inside she must know that, even if she sounds angry. Deep inside she knows she needs me. She’s not strong enough to break away. She’s not ready.
How are things at home?
Quiet. It’s always quiet when you’re not here.
A halfhearted joke. I should have figured Isabelle would misinterpret it. She does most things these days.
Maybe you should try to meet someone. Have you been to Grandma’s lately?
The fact that my daughter thinks she needs to worry about my relationships annoys me.
Your grandmother is busy. Sewing circles or whatever it is she does now.
It’ll be all right, don’t worry.
But don’t you know anyone else you could visit? You haven’t always lived in Dalarna.
What is this? Where did these comments come from? And with that tone? It’s not like Isabelle. Not at all. And before I can gather my thoughts it continues.
Where did we live when I was little? You’ve never told me about that. Just that we were somewhere in Denmark before you moved to Borlänge and met Dad.
Maybe I handled it all wrong. But Isabelle’s tone didn’t make it easy. So accusatory and angry and disagreeable. Impertinent. Ungrateful. I wasn’t prepared for my own reaction.
Hans, you mean?
It just tumbled out of me. I guess I wanted to put little miss in her place. It hurts when Isabelle attacks me. Of course I want to talk about it. That’s obvious. But like this? On the phone?
This should have made us closer, being just the two of us. But things seem to be getting worse. If she only knew how sad it makes me. She still doesn’t know what I’ve been through. Doesn’t it matter that I’m her mother? That I carried her, gave birth to her over the slowest, most painful and awful forty-six hours of my life? That I nearly died in the process? Doesn’t it matter how I held her and rocked her in the rocking chair those first few months? That I patched up her wounds and sat with her at night when she was ill. That I brought her here to Dalarna to make a safe home for her, found a father for her, the best one imaginable.
Hans meant everything to Isabelle. And Aina, Isabelle’s grandmother, has a very special place in her heart. But me, I’m basically worthless. No one understands how it feels. How much it hurts. Despised and rejected, even though I built my life around her. Children can be so unbelievably cruel.
Hedvig moves anxiously, and I readjust her blanket. Poor woman, what a fate. Is this how I’ll end up? Caring for my daughter only seems to push her away.
The shame I feel for the way I told Isabelle about Hans strikes me more often than I’d like. I understand she’s hurt and sad, I truly do. But she’s changed lately, more than she knows. She’s almost always angry or annoyed. It’s more than just being disappointed with me. She’s totally different than she used to be.
What we need is to meet. Ideally, I’d like to take Isabelle home again, have some time to fuss over her. We need to belong to each other again. If we’re together and have the chance to really talk, we’ll find our way back to each other. Everything will be all right.