A Nearly Normal Family

by M. T. Edvardsson

  At first I thought I had ADD or ADHD, then Borderline Personality Disorder, Schizoid Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder.

  I came to the conclusion that it was all bullshit.

  I am who I am. Diagnosis: Stella.

  There are an infinite number of things wrong with me, I won’t deny that. I’m anything but normal. My brain fucks with me twenty-four hours a day. But I don’t need any other name for that than my own. I am Stella Sandell. If someone has a problem with me, maybe they’re the one who needs therapy.

  And it’s no secret that psychologists often have their own mental issues. If they don’t start out with any, they show up later. Too much Freud would make anyone nuts.

  It was while I was reading up on all this that I got hooked on psychopaths. I guess you could say I became obsessed with them. They say it’s good to have a hobby, so I replaced handball with psychopathology.

  The psychologists I met before I came to the jail were similar in some ways. Most of them were women, many of them were redheads, often with a particular “concerned” look, not infrequently dressed like a high school music teacher. A surprising number of them spoke with a Småland accent.

  So as Jimmy the Guard hustles me in to see the jail psychologist, it’s not all that easy for me to conceal my surprise.

  “Hi, Stella. I’m Shirine.” She’s dark and pretty and has her hair in two tight braids—a Middle Eastern version of Princess Leia.

  “I don’t need a psychologist,” I say.

  I’ve actually prepared a hailstorm of flashy words like “violation of integrity” and “overreach of power,” the kind of stuff that always has some effect on public servants who have underestimated you. But Shirine just sits there like she’s fucking Lady on a meatball date and I can’t even bring myself to raise my voice.

  “That’s okay,” she says. “I understand you feel reluctant, but I meet with all the teenage inmates here. It’s not up to me.”

  She smiles warmly. She really looks kind, the way you mostly only see in little old ladies and puppies.

  “I mean, it’s nothing personal,” I emphasize. “I’m sure you’re great. But I’ve been to a lot of psychologists.”

  “I understand,” says Shirine. “I won’t take it personally.”

  Then there’s silence, the kind I can’t handle. Shirine sits across from me, smiling, letting her sympathetic gaze fall upon me.

  “So you’re going to make me? We’re going to sit here for an hour every week and stare at each other?”

  “It’s up to you, Stella. If you want to talk, I’ll be happy to.”

  I roll my eyes. No chance I’m about to talk, no matter how gentle her brown eyes are and no matter how much she smiles like Lady. What am I supposed to say? I’m never going to tell anyone what I’ve experienced. No one would understand. I barely understand it myself.

  The quiet game starts now.

  We sit there looking at each other. Now and then Shirine poses questions I don’t answer: “How are you doing in here? Have you gotten to talk to your family? Are you sleeping okay?” The hour passes so ridiculously fast, I almost suspect she’s fudging with the time somehow.

  “Maybe we’ll see each other next week then,” she says, rising to summon the guard.

  “I’m sure we will,” I say, and Jimmy picks me up by the door and herds me like goddamn livestock back through the corridor. He stares at me with eyes of ice as he lets me back in my room.

  I hate the solitude. It scares me. Everything creeps so uncomfortably close to you in here. I can’t escape my thoughts and feelings when Jimmy turns the lock and leaves me alone with the walls and the smell. Inside, my mind is screaming. I’m about to explode.

  I don’t know if it’s worth it, if I can handle it. I know there are a lot of people who never get out of here alive.

  43

  They were dressed in civilian clothes, sure, but you didn’t need to have watched that many episodes of Criminal Minds to figure out that they were cops. Two broad-shouldered clichés wearing guarded expressions, jeans, and running shoes. All that was missing were the walkie-talkies on their belts.

  There was only about an hour until closing, and after a pretty busy Saturday the stream of customers had begun to slow to a trickle. I was working the register, taking payment from a gray-haired lady in a denim jacket who had finally decided to pull the trigger on the purple tunic she had come in to finger earlier that morning.

  “Receipt’s in the bag,” I said, handing over the hideous tunic. It would be perfect for her.

  The lady lingered at the register, lifting her thick-framed glasses and inspecting the receipt. She almost got run down by the two policemen.

  “Stella Sandell? That’s you, right?”

  I looked at their IDs. The tunic lady’s jaw dropped.

  “Has something happened?” I asked.

  A multitude of potential catastrophes passed through my mind.

  “It’s not…?”

  “We need to talk to you,” explained the older officer, scratching at his beard. “I’m afraid you’ll have to come with us.”

  He had kind green eyes and looked like the sort of guy who liked slow food and talking about his feelings even though he must have been born in the fifties. Probably he’d married young and had a wrecked relationship behind him, started dating online once the kids moved out, but belonged to that restless category of people who know the grass is always greener somewhere else, so his romances never lasted more than a couple months.

  “Is there anyone who can cover for you here?” asked the other officer. Twenty years younger, but his eyes were much more exhausted. Judging from the cancer-level tan on his face, he had just returned from two weeks in Turkey. He looked like a person who jumps feet first into everything—vacation had to be vacation. Late nights, Efes and Raki, card games on the balcony. It would probably take at least a week to recover.

  “Anyone who can take over here?” asked the older officer, as if I hadn’t heard his colleague.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “We’re closing in an hour.”

  Malin and Sofie both offered to take over my register. Then they stared after me in horror as I followed the officers out.

  “What’s going on?” Sofie whispered.

  I never heard whether she got an answer.

  * * *

  The woman who questioned me was called Agnes Thelin. If I’d seen her around town I don’t think I ever would have guessed she was a cop. She looked more like a visual merchandiser or a creative director. She definitely didn’t shop at H&M. She probably lived in an architect-designed house with an open floor plan and Danish lighting. She was the kind of person who would never admit that she didn’t like sushi. The type who claimed to love brutal honesty but was completely destroyed if someone gave her any straightforward criticism.

  I liked her immediately. Maybe because I could identify with her in certain ways.

  “What does the name Christopher Olsen mean to you?”

  I looked her in the eye and shrugged.

  “Do you know him?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Agnes Thelin cocked her head.

  “It’s a pretty simple question.”

  I clarified that I know thousands of people, from school and handball, people I meet out or online, friends and friends of friends. Plus, I’m pretty shit at names. Some people, obviously, I know their full names, but other people I only know their first names or nicknames, and some people I have no clue at all.

  “Did you say Christopher?”

  “Christopher Olsen.” Agnes Thelin nodded. “Most people call him Chris.”

  I considered this.

  “Chris? Yeah, I know at least one Chris, I guess. A slightly older guy, right?”

  Agnes Thelin nodded. And then—I was completely unprepared—she placed a photo of him on the table and asked if he was the person I was thinking of.

  My heart beat harder. I looked at that picture carefully, for a lo
ng time. I picked it up and inspected it at close range.

  “Yeah,” I said at last. “I know him.”

  “Unfortunately, he’s dead,” said Agnes Thelin.

  I heard myself inhale sharply.

  Agnes Thelin told me that some poor mom with small kids had found the body on a playground near Polhem.

  “Shit,” I said, bringing my hands to my mouth.

  I for real thought I was going to puke.

  “Did you go to Polhem?” Agnes Thelin asked.

  “No, Vipan.”

  “And you just graduated?”

  I nodded and Agnes Thelin shifted a little further back in her chair.

  “My oldest graduated from Katedral last summer. He’s in London now. My youngest is in his last year of the IB program.”

  I tried to look like I cared. This was probably a simple trick, getting personal. She was trying to make me want to trust her.

  “What does all this have to do with me?” I asked. “Did you have to come get me at work for this?”

  “Sorry about that, but it really was necessary.”

  She was scrutinizing me. I felt a snakelike ribbon of worry wind through my belly. My nausea had turned to something else: a threatening omen; icy, biting fear.

  “What is this all about?” I asked.

  “Can you tell me what you did yesterday?” asked Agnes Thelin.

  “I worked. I worked up until closing. Then we went up to Stortorget to eat. We had some wine and talked.”

  “We who?”

  “Me and some colleagues.”

  She clicked her pen and made a note.

  “What time was this?”

  “We close at seven and work until quarter past.”

  Agnes Thelin wondered how long we had stayed at Stortorget.

  “I don’t know how long the others stuck around, but I was there for a few hours. I think it was about ten thirty when I headed out.”

  “Then what did you do?” she asked, resting her pen.

  “I … I took my bike.” I tried to recall exactly what had happened. “First I biked up to Tegnérs. I know I drank a cider at the bar there, but I didn’t see any familiar faces. Then I was at … Inferno for a little bit, or whatever that place is called. It’s kitty-corner from the library.”

  “Inferno? That’s another bar?”

  “Yes.”

  “How much did you have to drink?”

  Agnes Thelin sounded like my dad. She had that same typical-parent look. When they claim to be worried, but they just look super fucking annoyed.

  “Not that much. I had to get up and work.”

  She looked at me as if I was lying, which I found offensive.

  “It’s true. Alcohol isn’t my thing.”

  I happened to think of something Dad likes to say. He maintains it’s hard to lie, that most people suck at it. For a long time I thought he was mistaken. Time and again, I proved him wrong. I didn’t have any trouble lying at all. In general, people were gullible as shit, I thought.

  Until I realized that it might actually be the other way around. That Dad was right. Maybe it wasn’t that people will fall for anything. Maybe, in fact, I was exceptionally awesome at lying.

  Now I know it’s true.

  44

  When I was little, Dad was my hero. One time, at preschool, Hat-Nisse made fun of my dad. We called him Hat-Nisse because he wore a hat year-round. He laughed at me and told everyone how weird it was to have a pastor for a dad.

  I shoved Hat-Nisse backward into a shelf and he cut his head. Dad chewed me out when he heard about it. Of course no one mentioned how it all started, only that I had a fit and pushed Hat-Nisse so hard that he had to go to the ER. And I didn’t say anything either.

  I’ve always hoped that Dad would just understand. It seems important that I shouldn’t have to explain myself. Maybe there’s something wrong with me, something other people don’t experience the same way, but I’ve always felt ashamed to be held accountable for who I am.

  Each time Dad didn’t understand, I felt disappointed and we drifted further and further apart.

  It’s awfully ironic that the sides of me that bother Dad most are the things I inherited from him.

  There’s something to sink your teeth into, Shirine!

  I have a theory that the psychologists loved our family. A pastor, a lawyer, and a maladjusted teen. We could serve as textbook examples in their manuals.

  One time in school my whole class got bawled out by Bim, our advisor, because we had too many opinions. Typical millennials, she yelled. Always having so many ideas about everything!

  I guess lots of stuff was simpler before, when kids just shut their mouths and obeyed. I’ve never been that way, and I never will be. I don’t think it would matter if I were a teenager in the eighties or now.

  When I think back on all those therapist appointments, some of those shrinks sure did display a certain amount of smug schadenfreude. There must be something special about getting a behind-the-scenes peek at an apparently successful family, a lawyer who was on TV sometimes, and a pastor, ohmygod a pastor. Just imagine getting to peer into the filthiest corners of our perfect family. Maybe that’s what it takes to endure one’s own tragic existence at a sad county-run psych clinic.

  But I wonder about Shirine … she doesn’t look at all like them, not the way I remember them.

  There was a time when I myself wanted to become a psychologist. I like to think I’m pretty good at seeing through people and understanding and figuring out stuff they may not even realize themselves. I’m a good judge of character. To be honest, this isn’t just some idea I have about myself—people have always said so. People turn to me with all sorts of problems: family issues and lame boyfriends. I’m good with people, good at analyzing them.

  Another time we were at open houses for the high schools—Katedral, Spyken, and Polhem, the only ones I could imagine attending. There were two guys at Katedral with slicked-back hair and unbuttoned shirts who were telling us about the social-sciences program. When I said I wanted to be a psychologist, they cracked up.

  “You know how impossible it is to get accepted to that program?”

  It was a slap in the face.

  The next week, my counselor confirmed that you needed the highest grades in every subject to become a psychologist. It was one of the most attractive university programs. Would I consider HR instead? It was pretty much the same thing.

  I think that’s when I decided to say screw it to high school. It wasn’t worth it.

  How many people do I know who wasted three years of their lives slaving away, and they still only received grades that were average at best? They put their lives on hold; some of them even downed pills and cut their arms to get a B in English. For what? So they can spend their days in a pantsuit?

  Bim was actually more perceptive than you’d think. At parent-teacher conferences she told Dad that I surely could have made an A or B in most classes. If I only wanted to.

  She was spot on. I didn’t want to.

  I was more into a night out at a club venue with free drinks than an assignment about practical marketing. I prioritized Copenhagen with the girls over a standardized math test. Instead of taking a history exam I hung around Starbucks, making out as if my life depended on it.

  It was a conscious choice.

  In my third year, when people were starting to talk about university entrance exams and we were invited to open houses at the university, I was busy planning an extended trip to Asia. I was so tired of Lund and Sweden. I devoured YouTube videos from Malaysia and Indonesia and soon that trip became my only goal in life. I longed for adventure, long nights, new people, parties, and nature straight out of paradise. My parents and I agreed we would revisit the university question after my trip.

  Bim was an old owl lady who should have retired back in the 1900s. I like to say she was the one who destroyed my academic career, even though obviously that’s just a joke.

  You could see i
t in Bim’s eyes that she didn’t like me. I don’t actually care if people don’t like me, they have every right not to, but it bugs me when someone is so stupid they can’t even hide it. Bim was always going around with this fake smile plastered on her face under her square glasses and downy mustache, grinning too much and saying, “Good morning, boys and girls.”

  I guess I haven’t had too many teachers who liked me. I wasn’t the reason they were longing to get back to work on Monday mornings, I guess you could say. I was no model student. It probably would have gone better if I were a guy. They can’t help it, boys will be boys, and all that.

  “Your dad’s a pastor?” Owly Bim asked every time my dad was mentioned. She stared at me as if her whole world was going to pieces. “A pastor? In the Church of Sweden?”

  * * *

  It’s all about control.

  People never believe that. In their minds, the need for control is a characteristic of that sort of pedant who loses it if a paper ends up in the wrong pile on their desk, the type who sorts their wardrobe by exact shades of color. People think of organization Nazis with detailed calendars or neurotics who panic if they can’t immediately empty their inboxes and go bananas over a few crumbs on the sofa or a dirty kitchen counter. People who keep hand sanitizer in their bags.

  But this is a different sort of control. It’s about not losing face. Not letting anyone get too close.

  It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I realized my family isn’t the only one with secrets. It had always been so important to Dad to keep up a façade for the rest of the world.

  “We’ll deal with it when we get home.” I don’t know how many times I’ve heard those words. “This is none of anyone else’s business.”

  I was lulled into the belief that our family was unique, that we were the only ones carrying around a bunch of crap that had to be swept under the rug. Maybe it had to do with Dad’s work. I suppose pastors are just doomed to live parts of their private lives in secret.