Simon was chewing listlessly on a meatball and didn’t seem particularly inclined to answer his father’s question.
‘So, what do you say about a job?’ Mellberg said again, getting a bit more annoyed. Here he was making an effort to forge a bond between them, and Simon couldn’t even take the trouble to reply.
Still chewing, Simon said after a while, ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t think so?’ said Mellberg indignantly. ‘Then what do you think? That you can live here under my roof and eat my food and just sit and goof off all day long? Is that what you think?’
Simon didn’t even blink. ‘No, I’ll probably go back and live with my mom.’
The announcement hit Mellberg like a kick in the head. Somewhere near his heart he felt a weird, almost stabbing pain.
‘Back to your mom?’ Mellberg repeated, as if he couldn’t believe his ears. It was an option he hadn’t even considered. ‘But I thought you didn’t like living there. That you “hated that damned bitch.” That’s what you said when you arrived.’
‘Oh, Mom’s all right,’ said Simon, looking out of the window.
‘And I’m not?’ said Mellberg in a grumpy voice. He couldn’t hide the disappointment that had crept in. He regretted being so hard on the boy. Maybe it wasn’t really necessary for the kid to start working right away. There would be plenty of time for drudgery in his life; taking it easy for a while wasn’t going to ruin his chances.
Mellberg hurried to declare his new point of view, but it didn’t have the effect he expected.
‘Oh, that’s not it. Mum will probably make me get a job too. But it’s my buddies, you know. I have lots of friends back home, and here I don’t know a soul and …’ He let the sentence die out.
‘But what about all the great things we’ve done together,’ said Mellberg. ‘Father and son, you know. I thought you were enjoying finally being with your old pop. Getting to know me.’
Mellberg was groping for a convincing argument. He couldn’t remember why, only two weeks earlier, he’d felt such panic as he waited for his son to arrive. Sure, he’d been angry with him occasionally, but now for the first time he was actually excited to return home after work. And now all that was about to disappear.
The boy shrugged. ‘You’ve been great. It has nothing to do with you. But I was never actually supposed to move here. That’s just something Mom says when she gets mad. She’s sent me to Grandma before, but now that Grandma’s sick, Mom didn’t know what to do with me. But I talked to her yesterday. She’s calmed down now and wants me to come home. So I’m taking the nine o’clock train in the morning,’ he said without looking at Mellberg. But then he raised his eyes. ‘But it’s been really cool. Honest. And you’ve been bloody great and tried really hard and all that. So I’d like to come and visit sometimes, if that’s okay …’ He paused for a moment but then added, ‘Dad?’
Warmth spread through Mellberg’s chest. It was the first time the boy had ever called him Dad. Damn it, it was the first time anyone had ever called him Dad.
All at once, he found it a bit easier to take the news that the boy was leaving. At least he would be coming back to visit once in a while. Dad.
It was the hardest thing they had ever done. At the same time, it gave them a feeling of closure that would enable them to build a foundation for their marriage in the future. The sight of the little white casket sinking into the ground made them hold each other tight. Nothing in the world could be more difficult than this. Saying goodbye to Sara.
Niclas and Charlotte had chosen to be alone. The ceremony in the church had been short and simple. They had wanted it that way. Only the two of them and the pastor. And now they stood alone by the grave. The pastor had spoken the words the occasion demanded and then quietly withdrawn. They had tossed a single rose onto the casket, and it shone bright pink against the white wood. Pink had been her favorite color. Maybe just because it clashed with her red hair. Sara had never chosen the easy paths.
Their hatred for Lilian was still fresh. Charlotte felt ashamed to be standing in the stillness of the churchyard, with so much hatred gushing out of every pore in her body. Maybe it would be assuaged over time, but out of the corner of her eye she saw the mound of earth on her father’s grave, formed when he was laid to rest for the second time. Then she wondered how she would ever be able to feel anything other than rage and sorrow.
Lilian had not only taken Sara from them, but also her father, and she would never forgive her for that. How could she? The pastor had talked about forgiveness as a way to lessen the pain, but how does one forgive a monster? She didn’t even understand why her mother had committed these horrendous crimes. The meaninglessness of the deeds only stoked the fury and pain she felt. Was Lilian completely insane, or had she acted according to some sort of demented logic? The fact that they might never find out made the loss even harder to bear; she wanted to rip the words of explanation out of her mother’s mouth.
Besides all the flowers from people in town who wanted to show their sympathy, two small wreaths had also arrived at the church. One was from Sara’s paternal grandmother Asta. It was placed next to the casket and had now been carried down to the churchyard to be placed beside the small gravestone. Asta had also contacted them to ask if she could attend, but they had politely refused. They wanted the time to themselves. Instead, they asked whether she might consider taking care of Albin while they went to the church, and she had agreed with pleasure.
The second wreath was from Charlotte’s maternal grandmother Agnes. Without understanding why, Charlotte had refused to have it anywhere near the casket and had ordered it thrown out. She had always thought that Lilian took after her mother, and in some way she knew instinctively that the evil came from her.
They stood in silence by the grave for a long while, with their arms around each other. Then they walked slowly away. For a second, Charlotte stopped at her father’s grave. She gave a brief nod of farewell. For the second time.
In the little cell, Lilian felt safe for the first time in many years, oddly enough. She lay on her side on the narrow bunk, taking calm, deep breaths. She didn’t understand the frustration of the people asking her all those questions. What difference did it make why she had done it? The result was all that mattered. That’s how it always was. But now they were suddenly interested in the reasoning behind the deeds, in some logic they thought they might find, in explanations and truths.
She could have talked to them about the cellar. About the heavy, sweet scent of Mother’s perfume. About the voice that was so seductive when it called her ‘darling.’ And she could have told them about the rough, dry taste in her mouth, about the monster that lived inside her, still vigilant, still ready to act. Above all she could have told them how her hands, trembling with hatred, not with fear, carefully put the poison in Father’s cup and then scrupulously stirred it, watching it dissolve and vanish into the hot tea. It was lucky that he always took his tea with so much sugar.
That had been her first lesson. Not to believe in promises. Mother had promised her that everything was going to be different. Once Father was gone, they would live a completely different life. Together, close. No more cellar, no more fear. Mother would touch her, caress her, call her ‘darling,’ and never let anything come between them again. But promises were broken as easily as they were made. She had learned that back then and would never let herself forget it. Sometimes she wondered if what Mother had said about Father might not have been true. But she couldn’t even bear to think about that possibility.
She had learned another important lesson as well. To never let herself be abandoned again. Father had abandoned her. Mother had abandoned her. Then she was shuttled from one foster family to another like a soulless piece of baggage, and they all had abandoned her too, if only through their lack of interest.
When she visited her mother at the prison in Hinseberg, she had already made up her mind. She would create a new life, a lif
e in which she had the control. The first step had been to change her name. She never again wanted to hear that name that trickled like venom over Mother’s lips. ‘Mary. Maaaryyy.’ When she had sat in the dark of the cellar, that name had echoed between the walls, making her cower and curl up into a ball.
She chose the name Lilian because it sounded so different from Mary. And because it made her think of a flower, frail and ethereal, but at the same time strong and supple.
She had also worked hard to change her appearance. With military discipline she had denied herself everything that she previously gorged on, and with astonishing rapidity the pounds vanished from her body until her obesity was only a memory. And she never again permitted herself to get fat. She had watched scrupulously that her weight did not increase by a single ounce, and she showed contempt for those who didn’t display the same fortitude, like her daughter. Charlotte’s weight disgusted her, bringing back memories of a time she didn’t want to think about. Anything flabby, loose, and slack aroused a feeling of rage in her, and sometimes she’d had to fight a desire to tear the flesh from Charlotte’s body with her bare hands.
They had scornfully asked her if she felt disappointed that Stig had survived. She hadn’t responded. To be honest, she didn’t know the answer herself. It wasn’t as if she had planned what she did. It had merely happened naturally somehow. And it all started with Lennart. With his talk about how it might be best for both of them if they separated. He’d said something about the fact that after Charlotte moved out, he’d discovered that they no longer had much in common. Lilian wasn’t sure whether it was then, with those first words, she’d decided that her husband had to die. She felt that it was something she was destined to do. She had found the can of rat poison back when they’d bought the house. She couldn’t explain why she never threw it away. Maybe because she knew it might come in handy one day.
Lennart had never done anything in haste in his whole life, so she knew that it would take time before he got around to moving out. She had started with small doses, small enough that he wouldn’t die immediately, but big enough to make him seriously ill. Gradually his health had been broken. She had enjoyed taking care of him. There was no more talk of separating. Instead he had gazed at her with gratitude when she fed him, changed his clothes, and wiped the sweat from his brow.
Sometimes she had felt the monster stirring restlessly again. Losing patience.
It had never occurred to her that she might be found out, oddly enough. Everything happened so naturally, and one course of events succeeded another. When Lennart was given the diagnosis of Guillain-Barré syndrome, she took it as a sign that everything was as it should be. She was just doing what she was intended to do.
In the long run, he left her anyway. But it was on her terms—through death. The promise she had made to herself, that no one would ever be allowed to abandon her, still held.
And then she met Stig. He was so loyal, so confident by nature that she was sure he would never entertain the thought of leaving her. He did everything she said, even accepting staying in the house where she had lived with Lennart. It was important to her, she explained. It was her house. Bought with money from the sale of the house she’d inherited from Mother, the house she had lived in until she married Lennart. Then, to her great sorrow, she’d been forced to sell it. There wasn’t enough room in the little house. Yet she had always regretted it, and the house in Sälvik had felt like a poor substitute. But at least it was hers. And Stig had understood that.
Eventually, as the years passed, she began to notice signs of discontent in him. It was as if she could never be enough for anyone. They were always chasing after something else, something better. Even Stig. When he began talking about how they were growing apart, about feeling a need to start over on his own, she hadn’t made any conscious decision. Her actions had simply followed his words as naturally as Tuesday followed Monday. And just as naturally he, precisely like Lennart, had turned to her in gratitude because she was the one who took care of him, who nursed him, who loved him. This time too she knew that parting would be inevitable, but what did that matter when she controlled the pace and determined the moment?
Lilian turned over on her other side and rested her head on her hands. She stared at the wall, seeing only the past. Not the present. Not the future. The only thing that counted was the time that had passed.
She did notice the loathing in their faces when they asked about the girl. But they would never understand. The child had been so hopeless, so intractable, so disrespectful. Not until Charlotte and Niclas had moved in with her and Stig did she realize how bad the situation was. How evil the girl was. It had shocked her at first. But then she had seen the hand of fate in it. The girl was so much like Agnes. Maybe not in appearance, but Lilian had seen the same evil in her eyes. Because that was what she’d come to realize over the years. That Mother was an evil person. She enjoyed watching as the years gradually broke her down. She had moved her to a place nearby. Not so she could visit her, but for the feeling of control it gave her to deny her mother the visits she desperately yearned for. Nothing made her happier than knowing that Mother was sitting there, so close yet so far away, rotting from the inside.
Mother was evil and the girl was too. Lilian had seen how the girl was slowly splitting the family apart and destroying the fragile mortar that held Niclas and Charlotte’s marriage together. Her constant outbursts and demands for attention were wearing them down, and soon they would see no other way out than to go their separate ways. She couldn’t let that happen. Without Niclas, Charlotte would be nothing. An uneducated, overweight, single mother of small children, without the respect that came with a successful husband. Some people in Charlotte’s generation would probably say that such a view was obsolete, that it was no longer fashionable to win social status through marriage. But Lilian knew better. In Fjällbacka, status was still important, and she liked having it that way. She knew that people, when they talked about her, often added, ‘Lilian Florin? Oh yes, her son-in-law is a doctor, you know.’ That gave her a certain respect. But the girl was going to destroy all that.
So she had done what was demanded of her. She noticed when Sara turned back on her way to Frida’s because she’d forgotten her cap. Actually Lilian didn’t know why she had done it right then. But suddenly the opportunity presented itself. Stig was sleeping soundly from his sleeping pills and wouldn’t wake up even if a bomb exploded in the house; Charlotte lay exhausted in the cellar flat, and Lilian knew that not many sounds penetrated down there; Albin was asleep, and Niclas was at work.
It had been easier than she expected. The girl had thought it was a fun game, to be able to take a bath with her clothes on. Naturally she had struggled when Lilian fed her with Humility, but she wasn’t strong enough. And holding the girl’s head under water had been no trouble at all. The only tricky part had been to get down to the shore without being seen. But Lilian knew that she had destiny on her side and that she couldn’t fail. She had covered Sara with a blanket, carried her in her arms, and then tipped her into the water and watched her sink. It took only a few minutes, and just as she’d thought, luck had been on her side. No one had seen a thing.
The second incident had been merely a spur-of-the-moment impulse. When the police began sniffing around Niclas, she knew that she was the only one who could save him. She had to create an alibi for him, and she happened to see the sleeping child outside Järnboden hardware store. Terribly irresponsible to leave a child like that. His mother really deserved to be taught a lesson. And Niclas was at work, she’d checked on that, so the police would be forced to eliminate him from the investigation.
Her attack on Erica’s daughter had also been meant to serve as a lesson. When Niclas mentioned that Erica had told him it was time that he and Charlotte got themselves their own home, Lilian had been furious. What right did Erica have to be giving out advice? What right did she have to interfere in their lives? It had been easy to carry the sleeping inf
ant to the other side of the house. The ashes were intended as a warning. She hadn’t dared stay to see Erica’s face when she opened the front door and discovered the baby was gone. But she’d pictured it in her mind, and the sight made her happy.
Sleep crept up on Lilian as she lay on the bunk, and she willingly shut her eyes. Behind her closed eyelids, the faces whirled past in a surreal dance. Father, Lennart, and Sara dancing round in a circle. Close behind them she saw Stig’s face, wasted and thin. But in the center of the circle was Mother. She was dancing with the monster in an intimate embrace, closer, tighter, cheek to cheek. And Mother was whispering: Mary, Mary, Maaaryyy …
Finally, the darkness of sleep rolled in.
Agnes was feeling sincerely sorry for herself as she sat by the window in the old folks’ home. Outside, the rain was pelting the window, and she almost thought she could feel it whipping against her face.
She didn’t understand why Mary didn’t come to visit. Where did she get all that hatred, all that rancor? Hadn’t she always done everything she could for her daughter? Hadn’t she been the best mother she could be? Not everything that went wrong along the way was her fault, after all. Other people were to blame. If only she’d had luck on her side, then things would have been different. But Mary didn’t understand that. She believed that Agnes was to blame for everything, and no matter how hard she’d tried to explain, the girl refused to listen. She had written many long letters from prison, explaining in detail why she wasn’t at fault, but somehow the girl was unreceptive, as if she’d hardened herself to all other views.
The injustice made Agnes’s old eyes well up with tears. She had never received anything from her daughter, even though she herself had given and given and given. Everything that Mary had perceived as nasty and horrid had been done for her own good. It wasn’t true that Agnes had taken any joy in punishing her daughter or telling her that she was fat and ugly. On the contrary. No, it had actually pained her to be so harsh, but that was her duty as a mother. And it had produced results. Hadn’t Mary finally pulled herself together and got rid of all that flab? Yes, she had. And it was all thanks to her mother, though she’d never received any credit.
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