Did you have a nice bonding session? Sam asked as we walked through the door.
I smiled. I felt genuinely happy. It was just what we needed, I said.
Merry
We had a visitor today. Sam was in Oslo; he took a flight late last night. Before he left, he paused a moment at the door, his new blazer buttoned up, his new sneakers blinding white on his feet. I suppose he is trying to fit in.
I’m sorry, he said. I know it’s a lot of travel. I know you’re alone a lot—too much, probably.
It’s unlike him, to apologize for something. I was caught off-guard. I didn’t know what to say.
It’s all right, I replied eventually. It’s just until you’ve established yourself, isn’t it. You’re doing it all for us.
He looked like he might say more, but instead he kissed my cheek, chaste and strange.
I slept soundly, all alone in the big bed. I spread out, I rolled over onto Sam’s side, smelled him in the sheets. There was a stain, the dried markings of our reproductive quest. Well, his. I’m not sure how much longer I can hold the wolf from the door, how much more time he’ll allow to pass before he sends me off to the doctor to be examined and explored for faults and flaws.
It seemed to happen so quickly before, he said.
It’s different every time, I assured him.
I dreamed of Frank, a dream or a memory, I don’t quite know. The two of us were in my childhood home, that tower of marble and glass. In my bedroom, I had a cabinet with a collection of porcelain dolls inside, beautiful, delicate, fragile things, so inviting for little girls to hold and touch, and yet they stayed always locked away, unmoving behind the glass.
They’re not for playing, my mother said. They’re special dolls just for looking. If you play with them, they will break.
Trust her to have filled my bedroom with immovable faces. I could never understand the point.
Frank in the dream had the cabinet unlocked, and a doll in her lap—my favorite one—the dark-haired little girl with red painted lips and a blue organza dress. She wore a pearl bracelet and shoes that could be removed from her toeless porcelain feet. Why do you have her, Frank? I shouted. I pulled. The doll was mine. I was crying in the dream; it was too unfair.
Carol came running into the room and took the doll away from us both. There, learn to share or no one plays, she said. Her dress was full of blood. She was trailing her insides all over the white carpet, the womanly parts that killed her in the end.
Carol, Carol. I think I was crying in my sleep.
In the morning, I went into the baby’s room. He was lying on his back, eyes open, watching me. Big eyes unblinking. What do they see, I wonder. What secrets will they one day spill?
I dressed in my running clothes and sat him in the stroller. We go every day now. I salivate for it. I cannot do without my little escape into the woods.
When we returned, I lifted him up. He needed changing, his diaper full and sodden. I lay him on the bed and closed the door behind me; settled onto the sofa to watch my shows. It was supposed to be a laundry and linens day, but I wanted to enjoy the empty house while I still could. I must have spent four hours in front of the screen, following my plastic housewife counterparts in Miami.
At some point, I looked up. Elsa was at the window, waving frantically to get my attention.
I went to the door. I set my face into a smile.
Elsa, what a wonderful surprise, I said.
She looked worried; she was frowning.
Sorry to come over without an invitation, she said. It’s just, I wanted to check if everything is all right over here.
It was then that I heard the crying, wailing, actually, deep and pained.
I must have blushed. Oh, I—I am so sorry if he was disturbing you, Elsa.
No, no, she said, looking confused. It is not why I came. It’s just…a lot of crying. He’s been crying a long time.
She looked briefly down at the headphones in my hand.
Sorry, she said quickly, it is of course none of my business.
Oh, Elsa, I said. Thank you so much for coming over. You are very kind. It’s just, well, we’re trying something. I am trying something new with the baby. Sleep training, I said. To see if it’s better. To see if the baby takes to it.
She looked at me and gave a small smile. Yes, she said. Of course.
Would you like to stay for coffee? I said. I can make a fresh pot. I have cookies, too; I baked them just yesterday. Raisin and oatmeal. No added sugar.
The baby was still crying, screeching. Elsa seemed to wince at the sound.
I’ll bet Freja didn’t cry so much as a baby, I said. She must have been an angel.
She shook her head. I don’t know, she said. I am not her mother.
Sorry, I said. I thought.
Freja is Karl’s daughter from his first marriage.
I didn’t know.
We have been trying for many years to have our own child, she said. Nine times I have miscarried our babies.
Oh, I said. I’m sure it will come eventually.
She shook her head. Karl thinks there is something wrong with me.
The baby was still crying.
You should go to him, she said. I will let myself out.
I nodded. Thank you, I said, as she made her way back across the garden to her own house. From the living room wall, the eyeless masks watched in silent reproach.
In the bedroom, the baby was no longer on the bed where I had left him. He was on the floor.
Oh, baby, I said, lifting him and kissing him and rocking him in my arms. Mommy’s sorry. Mommy didn’t mean it.
I held him and stroked him and he screeched louder. He was holding his arm at a strange angle. I touched it and he bellowed and my heart raced with panic. Broken, maybe. I gave him a spoonful of medicine to calm him and kept him gently in my arms.
Mommy’s here, I said, Mommy’s got you.
My hands were shaking. I wanted to weep. Or vanish, or turn to dust.
At dinnertime, I fed the baby patiently, with many airplanes to amuse him. He did not laugh. Afterward, I held him tenderly on my lap and read him a story.
Who’s that hiding in the barn?
Who’s that under the blanket?
Who’s that in the nest?
He half-heartedly lifted the flaps on each of the pages. He found the horse and the kitten and the bluebird, without much enthusiasm. His eyes were still red from crying. I hugged him to me and kissed his warm head.
I tested his arm, handing him Bear and Biscuit to hold. He winced a little but did not scream. My insides turned over themselves.
When it was time for bed, I let him fall asleep in my arms, held gently to my breast. I could feel his heart beat; I could hear the soft breath coming from his lips, in and out, in and out.
I wanted to hold him in my arms for eternity.
Sam
I was opposite Malin, watching her careful movements, spying those heavy breasts and long, smooth legs. She is older than Merry, but stunning. In her youth, she must have been a tremendous beauty. The girl every man longed to fuck. She still has this quality.
I cannot take my eyes off her.
She was asking about Columbia. Life as an anthropology professor.
You must miss it, she said.
No.
But you spent so long working your way up, all that research, those papers and conferences—the years and years of study.
I folded my arms.
No.
You don’t mind that it’s gone.
Look, I said, irritated now. It happened. It was bad luck on my part—that some little bitch decided she wanted to ruin me. The rest of the faculty, they couldn’t wait to send me down for something—anything. I was too good, too much of a threat to their own pathetic careers.
You know how cutthroat academia is, I said.
But she was your student. It was inappropriate.
Christ, Malin, I said, everyone does it. I just got ca
ught out. They used me as an example. That’s all. They made me the fall guy.
She sipped her water. She shook out her hair with her long, slim fingers. The smell of her sat in the air of her apartment, everything touched by those hands, everything brushed by that skin.
There was a photograph of her with a gray-haired man, the two of them set against a flaming pink sky. This your husband? I asked once.
She did not reply.
She looked at me and bowed her head. Forgive me, Sam, she said. I don’t mean to pry.
I leaned forward. Then let’s change the subject, I said, giving her a wink.
She smiled. Whatever you say.
On my way home, my mother called me.
I’ve transferred the money, son.
Good, I replied.
You could thank me, she said.
No, Mother, I said. I have nothing to thank you for in this lifetime.
Merry
There are only a few days left before Frank arrives.
In the spare room, I set a vase of lilacs on top of the chest of drawers and hung a dozen hangers in the wardrobe. I pulled the bed straight and puffed up the pillows.
Still I can’t work out if this feeling is anxiety or excitement, delight or dread. I don’t know if I feel anything at all.
With so much left to arrange, I borrowed the car and drove into Stockholm for a spending spree. Sam was at home preparing for a pitch meeting.
You’ll have to take Con along with you, he said. I have too much work to do.
Before I set off, I stood outside and looked toward the house, imagining how it will be for Frank to see it for the first time. You cannot fail to be impressed. You cannot be underwhelmed. Yes. It is beautiful. A sign of achievement. A great big checkmark. And mine. I smiled. The baby was in my arms. I kissed him and took his little hand in mine, feeling the small bones of his fingers against my palm.
That’s right, I said, Mommy loves you.
In Stockholm, we went winding around the almost-familiar streets, popping into stores to check things off my list. A new brass reading lamp from a Finnish design store, an industrial bench as a side table. New Egyptian cotton sheets in a soft shade of fern, a bright handwoven traditional Norwegian throw for some color. In my head I could see how it would all work together. The ultimate guest room for the ultimate guest. I should be good at this, I suppose, even though my set-building days in New York seem so far away.
Looking back, it surely embarrassed Sam, that job. Well, he got his way, didn’t he. In those first whirlwind months he told me he could see me as the mother of his children. I’d laughed. But he knew what he wanted. And how to get it.
Before set design, I tried many things. Failed at most. It was sheer chance, really, that I dated a man who worked on sets, who one day needed an extra pair of hands. You’ve got a great eye, the director said. He hired me for his next project and from there it grew. Making imaginary worlds, constructing them piece by piece. It was a thrill every time. Creating something out of nothing. The way I could close my eyes and imagine a new world, then open them and make it so. It was hardly empire-building, but to me there was power in it all the same.
In New York, I attended meetings with producers and creative directors. I wore heels and drank espressos around boardroom tables at midnight; I planned shoot schedules and wardrobes and sometimes flew across the country just to pick up the right lamp. There was always a character synopsis to work from: John is a hardworking banker who likes good wine and good food. He works long hours but he surfs on the weekend and plays drums in a punk rock band.
The client and I would discuss John like he was a real person who might have an opinion on the choices I was making. Would John really have a Chemex? Wouldn’t he use a Nespresso machine instead? Might he have both? You could debate about fictitious John for hours, trying to get to the heart of his emotional complexity.
I was a natural. But then, I have always been good at inventing things. I met many people, received invitations to countless parties. For a while, I pulled off being that woman—the one who appears to have it all. On the surface, at least.
In Östermalm, I popped into a few designer boutiques. I bought two new dresses, a summer jacket, a pair of gold sandals. The baby watched me shop in silence while the sales assistant offered me different sizes and colors. I looked at myself in the mirror. Just the thing for Frank, I thought. Just stylish enough to rub it in, to remind her of her place.
Frank’s style, no matter how far she rises in the world—Ivy League college, business school, holidays aboard a yacht—she’s never managed to lose it. The sheen of a parvenu. Peasant stock, my mother would have said. She said it often enough about Carol.
In the Östermalm food hall, with its smells of cinnamon and citrus, I stopped for kannelbulle and a latte. I bought the baby a bun to suck between his gums. Sugar, I whispered, imagine what Daddy would say! He is using his left hand, the right arm he’s keeping cradled to his side. I stroked it gently. There, there.
I ought to take him to the doctor, just in case. I considered it on the drive over. He also needs a series of shots. His six-month checkup, his nine-month checkup. I am supposed to have crossed these things off my long list of mothering duties. I told Sam that I did. It will catch up with me someday, I suppose. All of it.
Back home, after I had put the baby down for a nap, I found Sam in the living room. I sat myself on his lap.
Well, look at this handsome husband of mine, I said, straddling him, purring, pulling him close.
I kissed him on the lips; I pushed my tongue gently into his mouth, then not so gently. With my hand, I rubbed him through his shorts.
What’s this, he said, taken aback at the sudden onslaught of affection.
Who are you and where is my wife? he joked.
Oh, I don’t know, I said. I pulled his zip down, gripped my fingers around him, stroked and fondled. Why don’t we just find out.
He kissed me, let his hands fall onto my breasts and down.
Guess what? I said. It’s a red day today.
He moaned.
Afterward, I lay with my legs up, like you’re supposed to do. The sperm trickles down; gravity helps everyone on their way. Sam touched a hand to my belly. Tender. No. Proprietary. He leaned over to kiss me where our baby would grow.
I read once about male cats, how their penises are barbed in order to scrape out any rival male’s semen from the womb. It is excruciating for the female, an exercise in torture. But nature is not always designed for kindness.
Shhh, I say to the baby in the mornings when I slip the little birth control pill hurriedly into my mouth. Don’t tell Daddy.
The baby watches me wide-eyed, thrilled to be part of another conspiracy.
I have a good feeling about this month, I purred. Sam held me and I did not pull away. I want him on my side. To leave Frank quite clear about the state of my marriage. My happiness.
All the things that are mine, mine, mine.
Later, the three of us took a long evening stroll, all the way through the woods to Sigtuna. On the way back, we walked through the housing estates and the stretch of fields that separate them from the reserve. On the side of the path, a pair of muddied pink panties lay winking in the afternoon sun. Neither Sam nor I commented. It reminded us too much of other events, I suppose. Things we’re not meant to remember, or let on that we know.
Never again, Merry, he’d promised, more than once. He always seems more devastated by his infidelities than I am.
Funny, my father used to say just the opposite. I’ll keep doing it, Maureen. I’ll keep doing it until you let me go.
He’d bring divorce papers home every few months, which my mother would painstakingly tear into tiny squares of confetti. When he came through the door, she’d throw it over him, like a brideless groom on his wedding day. Once, she gave me a handful to throw too.
I can ruin you, she warned him. Whatever I don’t know I can invent. And I’m very convincing, Gera
ld.
She had her ways, my mother.
You excited? Sam asked. For the visitor.
Oh yes, I said, pinching a small white flower off its stem with my nails.
You know what, he said, I am, too.
I felt something catch in my throat. I turned to look at him.
Yeah, Sam said. I’ve always liked Frank.
Frank
More than a year since I’ve seen Merry, and the moment I laid eyes on her it felt like yesterday. Oh, it’s the same feeling as always. A rush of adrenal glands in action, excitement and anticipation. Wondering: How will it be this time? Who will she be now?
Mer-Bear, I said. She opened her arms and we hugged a long time, breathing in each other’s scent. I felt her bones under my hands, the frailness of her. She looks exactly the same, always so strange and aloof, an ethereal being of shadows and sand. It makes her irresistible. An elusive beauty.
And now she is also bursting with health and happiness. Must be the fresh country air, all this wholesome living she’s been telling me about. Oh, and the pictures she sends—every moment of her life framed and caught and captioned. Look! Look at all this good fortune!
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