A Nearly Normal Family

by M. T. Edvardsson

  Chris made a gesture that meant it’s fine.

  “Know what?” he asked. “I’ve arranged things so I have February and March off next year. That’s a great time to visit Asia.”

  I just smiled. What could I say? That I preferred to go by myself? That there was no chance he would be coming with me?

  Chris pressed up against me. He gently swept my hair out of the way and kissed me slowly. His hand slid along the hem of my underwear; I closed my eyes. No one else had ever turned me on so much.

  “Where do your parents sleep?”

  Without letting go of me, he backed out through the door.

  “There?” he said, pointing at Mom and Dad’s bedroom.

  He guided me through the hall in a reluctant dance. Obviously I wasn’t about to lie down in their bed. I pushed Chris away but he came right back. The door opened and we stumbled into their bedroom. I tensed my body, grabbed the handle of the door and struggled.

  “Not here.”

  Chris laughed and let go of me. He stood there motionless, looking down at my parents’ double bed.

  “So this is where Papa Pastor sleeps.”

  When he looked at me, I felt the sting of his smile.

  “Come on,” he said, putting his arms around me. “I want to have you in Mommy and Daddy’s bed.”

  “No, stop it.”

  I struggled against him. He made an attempt to tip me over onto the bed, but apparently he underestimated my strength. I filled my feet with energy until they were stuck to the floor like suction cups, then used my upper body to push him off. I’d been through much tougher wrestling matches on the six-meter line of the handball court.

  “Okay, okay,” Chris said, laughing, trying to disarm me with his expression. “It was just a thought. An experiment. Don’t you like to experiment?”

  I thought of the objects in the locked drawer of the file cabinet.

  “Not like this, anyway,” I said.

  “No?”

  All my desire was gone.

  “Let’s go sit on the couch for a while.”

  Chris made a wounded face and waited a moment before following me down the stairs. I turned on the TV and rested my head on his shoulder. My thoughts were going a mile a minute.

  What was keeping me with Chris? I had been so goddamn tired of how nothing ever happened, so when Chris showed up I had thrown myself headfirst into the unknown. But now? I didn’t want a boyfriend, much less one who was thirty-two. I wasn’t about to experiment in my parents’ bed. Above all I just wanted to take off on the journey I’d been dreaming about for ages. No fucking guy was going to stand in my way.

  I looked at Chris. He was, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful beings I’d ever been in the vicinity of. But what did that matter? I wasn’t even eighteen yet—I had my whole life ahead of me.

  Chris gazed at me for a long time. His smile was back to being all kind and adorable. All the hard edges had been erased.

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to say it. I only knew that something had to be said.

  74

  The next morning, Chris had to hurry off to a meeting. I did a walk-through of the house with a spray bottle and a rag so I could rub out every trace of him.

  I messaged Amina:

  Think I have to dump Chris.

  Why??? she responded.

  I kept fiddling with the wording, saving draft after draft, erasing it all and writing it again. At last, I sent something:

  Think he’s starting to fall for me.

  Amina didn’t answer for almost an hour. Then she wrote that it was probably for the best.

  Later that afternoon, Mom and Dad returned home from vacation.

  “It looks so nice in here,” said Mom.

  I asked if they’d had a good time, and they both smiled and nodded.

  “You should have been there,” said Mom.

  Or not.

  They were in high spirits. Dad joked around, making a fool of himself. As Mom tried to unpack her suitcase he tickled her midsection, wrapped his arms around her from behind, and kissed the back of her neck.

  “What did you do to him?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?” Mom giggled.

  “Yeah, what do you mean?” Dad said, poking his tickle-fingers into my side as well, until I had to flee to the kitchen.

  “Is he on happy pills or something?”

  “I am the only happy pill your dad needs.” Mom laughed.

  * * *

  I biked to the arena to meet up with Amina after practice. It was starting to get dark but City Park was still full of people enjoying the summer warmth. Someone was singing and playing guitar; one group was playing soccer; some people seemed to be on dates.

  Near the indoor pool, a mother duck came waddling along, her babies trailing behind her. I braked and stepped off my bike so they could pass safely.

  As I stood there, grinning at the ducklings’ wobbly journey across the gravel path, I heard steps approaching behind me. I moved my bike to the side, carefully, to keep from scaring the ducks.

  “Please, listen to me.”

  When I turned around, I found Linda Lokind standing two meters behind me.

  “Jesus Christ,” I said. “Leave me alone. There is nothing serious between me and Chris. You can take it easy.”

  She looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language.

  “I know all about you,” I said. “You need help. Medication or something. If you don’t leave me alone this instant, I don’t know what I might do.”

  I was being loud. I didn’t care that people nearby could hear.

  “Of course,” said Linda. “Chris says I’m sick. A mental case, right?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s not just Chris. The police didn’t believe you either. And I’ve met your old friend Beatrice.”

  Linda’s hand flexed and landed near her pants pocket. She turned aside so I couldn’t see what she was doing. Did she have something in her pocket? I started walking, pushing my bike.

  “I told you about the girl he cheated with,” Linda said. “I found a text from her on his phone.”

  I walked faster, but Linda followed me.

  “It was Beatrice, my best friend. He slept with my best friend. Then he brainwashed her. She still believes it was all my fault, that I had some sort of mental breakdown.”

  I stopped and turned my bike so it formed a barrier between us.

  “You’re lying.”

  I couldn’t take this anymore. Chris and Linda and Beatrice could all go to hell.

  “I swear, it’s true.”

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  A few families had laid out picnics on flowered blankets on the grass nearby. Two girls of about five years old were galloping around on hobby horses, clacking their tongues. One of them looked just like I had at that age.

  “One day last winter, I was going to hang a picture in the bedroom,” said Linda. “It had fallen down when Chris threw a bottle of beer at the wall. After I nailed it back up, he walked over and took a look at it. It’s fucking crooked. The nail is crooked. I apologized and promised to fix it right away.”

  Her words flowed like blood from an open wound. I didn’t dare take my eyes off the laughing little girls on the lawn.

  “I reached for the hammer, but Chris got there first. He threw me down on the bed and swung the hammer through the air. You can’t even hang a fucking picture right!”

  My skin was crawling. Linda stood before me as the girls on the lawn shrieked with joy.

  “He raped me with the hammer.”

  A wave of disgust washed over me.

  “That’s enough!”

  Linda shoved her hand into her pocket.

  “I would like to hurt him. I want him to suffer the same way I did.”

  Her cheeks were scarlet; her neck was thrust forward and her eyebrows lowered. She was scaring me.

  “I could kill him.”

  I got
on my bike and set off for the arena. Before Amina even came out from practice I had looked up Chris in my phone and deleted the contact.

  75

  Michael Blomberg is sitting in front of me in a sky-blue shirt that’s unbuttoned almost to his navel. He places his giant paw of a hand on the table and looks at me as though he’s my dad.

  “Why do you want to meet with Agnes Thelin?”

  “I’m going to tell.”

  “Tell what?”

  I shrug.

  “What happened.”

  He waves his huge hand dismissively.

  “Listen. I’ve spoken with Ulrika and we’ve decided you have to keep mum as long as possible.”

  I make fists under the table.

  “Are you still fucking?”

  Blomberg looks like someone has just kicked him in the nuts.

  “You don’t have to answer,” I said. “I’d prefer not to know.”

  Blomberg runs his hand over his mouth.

  “That was a long time ago,” he says quietly. “Before this, I hadn’t seen Ulrika for several years.”

  He wipes away the sweat that’s trickling down his neck and behind his ears. Then he lifts his laptop onto the table. He stares at the screen and types noisily at the keys before finally looking at me again.

  “The prosecutor’s hypothesis is that Amina and Christopher Olsen were seeing each other behind your back.”

  “What? Seriously?”

  “The prosecutor believes that Olsen was unfaithful to you with Amina, and that you found them out, so to speak,” says Blomberg.

  The words drum out of him mercilessly. I know this has to do with me, but it sounds so foreign, like something you’d read on Reddit.

  “Unfaithful?”

  He nods.

  “They believe that you discovered them and made up your mind to kill Olsen.”

  “Hold on. The prosecutor thinks I killed Chris because he and Amina … what … had sex?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because I was jealous?”

  “Jealous? Betrayed? What do I know?” he says.

  “That’s totally fucked up!”

  Rage flares in my chest. I have to tell. Let everyone know what really happened.

  “Do you care about Amina?” Blomberg asks.

  “What the hell are you talking about? I love her!”

  “Then you will listen to what I have to say.”

  I snort, but force myself to listen.

  “For Amina’s sake,” Blomberg says.

  I can picture her, the fear in her eyes, her crushed dreams, and it’s like I collapse, like my whole body crumbles. Without Amina, I don’t know where I would be today, who I would be. I will never let her down.

  “The prosecutor will likely claim that you went to Olsen’s apartment with the intention of taking his life. But their argument is based on a weak chain of circumstantial evidence,” Blomberg says. “They have the witness testimony from the neighbor who says she saw you outside the building, of course. But that girl is a fragile little thing, not exactly a dream witness.”

  He looks straight at his monitor.

  “Then they have the shoe print and traces of pepper spray. Strands of hair, flakes of skin, and fibers from clothing. But there is no direct evidence that you were the one who killed Olsen.”

  “Okay.”

  He turns the screen toward me, but I don’t have the energy to read the tiny letters.

  “They have found evidence on Olsen’s computer too, messages and chats. They have a few phone records here and there.”

  Blomberg’s voice is calm and stable and makes me feel a little more composed.

  “The most important thing right now is your alibi, Stella.”

  “Okay?” I say, not sure what he means.

  He looks at me again.

  “The prosecutor’s timeline doesn’t hold water, because you have an alibi for the time the medical examiner says the murder was committed.”

  The words spin in my head.

  “I have an alibi?”

  That seems unlikely.

  “According to the ME’s report, Olsen died sometime between one and three in the morning.”

  I still don’t get it.

  “You were already home then, Stella.”

  “I was? No…”

  “Your dad looked at the clock. He is one hundred percent sure that you came home at quarter to twelve that night.”

  Dad? Quarter to twelve?

  My basic understanding of time is out of whack. I can’t get a handle on it.

  “That can’t be right,” I say.

  “Of course it is. If your dad says he’s sure, then it is definitely right.”

  I hardly hear what Blomberg says after that.

  I’m starting to understand what is going on.

  “Surely you don’t think your dad would lie?”

  76

  On the second-to-last Friday in August I turned eighteen. Dad was the one who chose the restaurant. Italian, of course. He’s obsessed with Italian food and anything that has even the slightest thing to do with that goddamn spaghetti nation, and he takes for granted that Mom and I feel the same way.

  All those vacations in Italy. Honestly: bruschetta and pasta, birra grande and vino rosso, and all those flirty, greasy-haired waiters with their fucking “Ciao, bella”? Gag me.

  In other words, I didn’t exactly have high hopes for my birthday dinner, but Mom and Dad had been nagging me about it all summer and considering the incident with the car, I didn’t want to disappoint them too much.

  The evening began on a low note. The restaurant had managed to book us for the wrong day, or maybe it was Dad’s fault; I don’t know. Then he didn’t want to let me order wine.

  “I’m turning eighteen,” I said. “The law is on my side.”

  “The law is not perfect,” Dad said.

  At least he was smiling.

  “What does our legal expert say?”

  As luck would have it, I had Mom on my side too.

  “Of course she can have wine.”

  Not that it mattered much what I drank with my food. It was the principle of the thing.

  When we were finished eating, they gave me a card that included a little map I was supposed to follow out the restaurant and around the corner. There stood the pink Vespa with a big ugly bow on the handlebars. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Dad had completely ignored my wish for travel money and instead blew thirty thousand kronor on a Vespa.

  “But I said…”

  “A ‘thanks’ will do,” said Dad.

  I hated myself. Of course I should have been grateful, should have thrown my arms around Dad’s neck, but there I stood, rooted to the spot, my body full of conflicted emotions. What was wrong with me?

  After dessert we sat there, quiet and full, staring at each other across the table. At regular intervals I checked my phone. The congratulations were streaming in on Facebook, but I hadn’t heard from Amina yet.

  “I think I have to take off soon,” I said.

  Dad was annoyed, of course. Here they had organized a birthday dinner for me, and I was just going to leave.

  “I’m going out with Amina,” I said, putting on my jacket. “Thank you so much for dinner and the present.”

  “Are you taking the Vespa?” Dad asked.

  I looked at my wineglass. Was that it? He knew I couldn’t drink if I had the Vespa.

  “Don’t worry,” Mom said. “We’ll find a way to get it home tonight.”

  She stood up with a melancholy smile and I closed my eyes as we hugged. Suddenly I felt so fucking unhappy. Regret, longing—a deep ache burned inside me, and I held on to Mom for a long time.

  Dad didn’t get up from the table. Our hug was an awkward, cold number. I saw how they gazed after me as I left.

  * * *

  The heat of late summer has a certain smell. When the hot weather has stuck around long enough, it penetrates the air in a way that only a steady rain can get
rid of.

  I crossed Fjelievägen and walked past the sporting fields. It smelled like apples and sauna, and someone was bouncing a ball against the concrete wall of the nearby running track. Cheerful voices and unbridled laughter rose above the monotonous traffic buzz on Ringvägen.

  I didn’t really have any plans at all. When I’d spoken to Amina on Thursday night, I’d said I didn’t feel like doing anything. I would go out to eat with Mom and Dad and then head home and chill.

  But now it felt wrong to waste the night. The wine had pepped me up and I had traded my Saturday shift so I could sleep away the whole next morning if I wanted to. I texted Amina, but when she didn’t respond within a minute I called instead.

  “What are you up to?” I asked.

  There was a crackle. A small thud.

  Amina disappeared for an instant, but soon returned with a clearer voice. She was panting slightly and seemed worked up.

  “I’m with Chris,” she said.

  “Chris?”

  Something hardened in my chest.

  “What are you doing with Chris?”

  She was slow to answer.

  “Oh, just … we’re, like, hanging out.”

  For a moment no one said anything. What was going on? Were Amina and Chris spending time together without me?

  “We were going to surprise you.”

  That sounded like a white lie.

  “Are you at Chris’s apartment? I can be there in five minutes.”

  “Five minutes?” Amina said.

  Next thing she hung up on me.

  What was going on? I knew Amina would never go behind my back. She would never do anything with Chris, not a chance, not without talking to me first. But I could hear in her voice that something wasn’t right.

  I thought of the sick story Linda had told me in City Park and started walking faster, past Polhem, down toward the community garden. For a brief time in ninth grade I was dating a guy who was in his last year at Polhem. Amina and I cut school after lunch a couple times, just to sit on the hidden playground at the corner, chain-smoking and doing away with our teen angst as we waited for the guys with driver’s licenses and their daddies’ cars, which gave them enormous status among kids our age.