Tell Me You're Mine(58)

I shared my life with her, I completely opened up. I told her about my fears of becoming a mother again. About my sorrow at not having more children. And I told her about Milo. My fear that something would happen to him, that he, too, would be taken from me.

Eva listened. Eva understood. Eva comforted me and gave me good advice. Eva liked my red umbrella.

I’m just about to leave the nursing home when I remember the photograph in my pocket. I stop and take it out. A younger Kerstin with a baby in her arms. Kerstin and Isabelle, Copenhagen, February 1994. The baby has curly blond hair. She’s laughing but she has no dimples. It’s not Alice. It’s another child.

And if it’s not her, who is it?

I go to the parking lot outside the entrance. I sit down in my car, lean back in my seat, and begin again from the beginning.

That rainy September day when Isabelle first entered my clinic. She shook her long black hair and smiled at me. I knew at that moment she was Alice.

My diary. All those memories.

Daniel and our story.

The mistake I made in not being honest with Henrik from the beginning. The fear of not being believed, the fear of being wrong. The fear of being committed again.

Eva fooled me into telling her everything. Kerstin fooled me.

Kerstin tracked down Henrik and used what I’d confided in her against me. Her calls about Milo made me go to his school and make a scene. Which made Henrik take me to Dr. Savic.

Eva’s duplicity, Kerstin’s lies.

She ran over Milo believing he was me.

My visit to Sven Nilsson. The tip he talked about. He was going to tell us everything. He died suddenly. Before he could say more.

Strandgården closed shortly after we stayed there. Elle-Marja talked about a daughter who didn’t want to run things after Lundin died.

He died suddenly.

Kerstin must have been at Strandgården in August 1994, but I have no recollection of seeing her. What was she doing there? She wasn’t staying in any of the cottages, of that I’m sure. We talked to the other guests, we pushed the stroller around, or walked on the beach.

Roger Lundin died unexpectedly.

He was going to tell everything.

Did he know something? And if so what?

He had a daughter. She moved here for a bit that year and then she disappeared again. She had a baby . . . this place was too much to take care of on her own.

The photograph I found. Kerstin and Isabelle, Copenhagen, February 1994.

And I hear Alice’s voice: I was born in Denmark.

I take out my phone, google for Elle-Marja’s number. I make the call.

“Hello?”

I recognize the voice, nasal and thin.

“Hi, Elle-Marja, my name is Stella Widstrand. We met at Strandgården a few weeks ago.”

I wait. Hear a dog barking in the background.

“Yes, hello?” Elle-Marja says.

I try again, say my name and remind her that we’ve met before.

“Yes, yes, I remember you,” Elle-Marja says. “I remember you very well. Quiet, Buster, I’m on the phone.”

“I need your help,” I say. “I need to know something about Roger Lundin of Strandgården, about his daughter.”

“Yes?”

“You told me he died in 1994.”

“He died at home on his sofa, God bless his soul,” Elle-Marja says. “His daughter was the one who found him. She called an ambulance, but he was dead by the time they arrived.”

“What did he die of?”

Elle-Marja has a coughing fit, then apologizes. “He had diabetes. That last summer he got a little deep into his cups, if you know what I mean. It was the kiss of death, if I may say so.”

“You said his daughter had moved home?” I say. “And she’d brought a child with her?”

“I met her a couple of times with the baby. It was in the spring, March or April, I think. Quite adorable. Like a little angel.”

Several months before we arrived. What happened to that baby? What happened to the real Isabelle?

“Then at the beginning of the summer she shut herself in,” Elle-Marja continues. “Just stayed indoors, didn’t meet a soul. There were rumors.”

“What kind of rumors?”

“People said she had a problem.”

“Alcohol? Like her father?”

“More like mental problems. Nobody really knew. But that’s what people said. And when Lundin died, she and the child moved away.”

“What was her name, Lundin’s daughter?”

“She wasn’t here long. And now the whole place is a ruin. It’s really too bad. Can you imagine if she’d just taken care of it instead?” Another attack of coughing.

I’m getting impatient. “Elle-Marja, listen to me,” I say. “Do you remember her name?”

“Unfortunately, no. Can’t remember.”

“Kerstin? Was her name Kerstin Lundin?”

Elle-Marja hesitates. “No, I don’t think so. Wait a second. I’m just going to look . . .”

There’s a scrape and a crackle; I hear the old woman muttering in the background. I wait. Listen to her talk to herself and putter around.

“Found it,” she says at last. “I have a book on local history, you know. It was at the very back of my bookshelf.”

Elle-Marja explains that the book contains a list of the buildings in Storvik and its surroundings. Who’s owned them over the last hundred years. Historical events, anecdotes, and pictures of places back in the day and now. I could surely get a copy if I want, it’s available for purchase from the woman who wrote the book. Berit Larsson is her name. Elle-Marja knows her. It’s not at all expensive and quite nice to flip through if you want to know more about Storvik and Strandgården.

I wonder where she’s headed with this. Probably nowhere. Another old person who just wants to talk for a while, but has got it all wrong. Who’s confused and ends up sidetracked. And for a moment, I think maybe she’s also suffering from Alzheimer’s.

“Aww, here it is, a wonderful picture of Strandgården at its height,” says Elle-Marja. “Flowers everywhere. Taken June 1994. The caption reads: ‘Roger Lundin, proud owner and entrepreneur who has been operating Strandgården since 1969. Also pictured, his daughter, Kerstin, and his grandchild, Isabelle.’”





Kerstin



The first time I came here, flowers covered the verandah. Hanging flowerpots, balcony boxes, pots. The flower beds were in bloom, well cared for and beautiful.

I loved helping Dad with that part of the work. Apparently, I inherited his green thumb. We spent a lot of time together when I first moved here. I felt so comfortable, so safe. Slowly but surely I started to come back to life.

Why couldn’t I have grown up here at Strandgården with him? It would have changed everything. Instead, I moved from foster home to foster home. Nothing to hold on to, never at home anywhere. Not even with Aina, where I landed when I was twelve. She meant well. She was kind, but I moved out as fast as I could. Moved around again until I ended up in Copenhagen.

After I got rid of Isabelle’s biological father, I looked up my own father. And when we got back from Denmark I knew it was here we were going to live, my girl and me. Here she could have a nice and harmonious upbringing. I’d give her everything I never had.

It didn’t turn out like that.

Nothing ever does.

I park, get out of the car, and stretch. The trip was more strenuous than I expected. And getting Isabelle into the house is a struggle. She fights me, fussing and being willful. I explain that she needs to come in and sleep for a while.

To rest, after everything she’s been through. Just one little sleeping pill this time, enough to make her feel calm.

She cries, she whines. No, I don’t want to, she moans. You did this when I was little, stop, I don’t want to. You killed Ola. She doesn’t know what she’s saying, she’s still in shock of course.

I explain that I saved her. That man got what he deserved. It was self-defense. And now you need to rest. Don’t you understand that?

Sleep, rest.

Like all good children do.

They rest, they sleep. They’re silent. Children need to take naps. Mothers need some peace and quiet sometimes, nothing strange about that. All mothers need a little time to themselves now and then.

She was too active. She was too wild. Whine whine whine.

Scream scream scream.

Cry cry cry.

We couldn’t go on like that.

You have to be calm and quiet, you have to be peaceful.

You have to be still.

And then, finally, you are.

I stay with her for a long time. I stroke her hair.

Everything happens for a reason, I’m sure of it.

There’s still wood and kindling stacked next to the wood-burning stove. I find some matches on the shelf above, open the hatch, arrange the wood, and light the kindling and some newspaper. I wait for it to catch, and then add a few more chunks of wood. The house soon feels warm and cozy.

I go outside, down the stairs, and turn to the right. Below me I see Strandgården. The long main building with its patio, the cabins beyond, the miniature golf course, and the shower and bathroom facility that stands next to the campsite.

It’s a long way from its former glory. But this is my place on earth. My place in life.

I turn around and head to the lookout point near the cliff. I caress the deer where it faithfully stands watch over my and Isabelle’s history.

That girl, she is my everything. My miracle. Who could imagine the pain I endured would give me Isabelle?