You Were Made for This

by Michelle Sacks

  Like Ida’s fairy tales, I built us a house of wood and stone, planted a garden of flowers and vines. We hatched our oracle child and imagined long lives ahead. Everything done wrong to us we would do right by him.

  My mother always told me that my father beat me—I didn’t remember it, but she insisted it was true. That’s why I sent him away, she said.

  She relented and gave me his full name on the morning of my twenty-first birthday, my hand pushing her head down into the pillows. I met him at a steakhouse off Michigan Avenue. Didn’t need to ask if we were father and son.

  She tricked me, he said. Got pregnant so I’d leave Beth.

  He didn’t leave Beth, or their three sons. And he didn’t want to get to know me.

  Nothing personal, he said, as we shook hands, then made for opposite ends of the DuSable Bridge.

  He was nowhere for me, but I would be a constant for my own son. This is how I would be a better man.

  I wanted to believe the Swedes were rubbing off on us. Wholesome. Everything in order, nice and civilized. Everything in moderation.

  Lagom, as they say, just enough. Even at the airport, catching sight of a middle-aged pair of Swedes decanting bottles of spirits into their flasks first thing in the morning, or hearing the chants of neo-Nazi protests outside the Swedish parliament, or reading about men found with their daughters chained up in their basements, I refused to believe in anything but the good. I brought us here so we could be the people I wanted us to be, away from the city and its temptations, its memories and its relentless need to suck you in.

  She could be the wife I needed. The mother my son deserved. Blank slate. That’s what it was.

  No, something else, too. A way to contain her. To keep her focused on what mattered.

  All alone. No friends. No job. Just me.

  Just us. Better that way.

  I walked around the house, in and out of the rooms, a hamster in a maze. At the doorway of Conor’s room, I stood. I could not go in. Instead, I locked myself away in the studio, watching hours and hours of my old unedited footage. Files marked by date, some just Conor, some going back all the way to his arrival in the world.

  Day-old Conor, week-old Conor, Conor smiling and crying and sleeping. Older Conor laughing and clapping his hands, lying outside on the lawn, he and Merry side by side, the baby nestled against the crook of her soft body. In one clip, she tickles him under his chin to make him laugh for the camera. Good boy, she says, who’s my good boy.

  Another clip, I’m spooning food into his mouth—his first solids, a milestone. Then my birthday, Conor in my lap, chocolate cake baked by Merry in front of us with a candle waiting to be used up on a wish.

  I blow; Conor cries because the flame is gone.

  There is loads of footage. Conor ages before me on the screen, a life rapidly evolving. He looks happy, most of the time, a baby boy like any other, unblemished by the world. We look happy, too. She made me believe we were.

  The final clip I watch is marked Lake, from the early days of this last spring. Merry is in a floral one-piece swimsuit. Conor, four months or so, is smiling in her arms, sun hat on his head, fat belly naked, arms flapping.

  Isn’t this the life, I hear myself say, and Merry does not move to respond, her smile a smile that’s painted on, her head held stiff. But there it is. I catch it, I see it now. On camera it’s hard to miss. The tensing of her arm muscles, the clenching of her fingers around his fat white thighs. He screams, an angry scream, and then the camera goes off.

  I play it again. Then a third time. Zooming in. Watching the fingers grip the flesh, digging in, squeezing, hurting.

  I switched off the screen and sat in the dark a long time.

  She has made a fool of me. Of everything I built for us. Of my dreams.

  She has done nothing but lie and deceive.

  Treacherous.

  All along she was treacherous.

  I remembered the little wheel of birth control pills. But why, if she knew that—

  Maybe she doesn’t know. Maybe she could only guess.

  Is that why she did it? Conor’s face, frozen on the screen, smiling out at me. I could hardly bear to look, to see. His face no longer my face but a stranger.

  I am not sorry he is gone.

  Merry

  How many days since I have seen light. Or slept, or washed. I could hardly hold my head up. My hair itched. When I dug at it with a fingernail, I drew blood.

  I’m telling you the truth, I said.

  I don’t think you’ve said one word of the truth, Merry. Just a whole lot of lies.

  I shook my head. No, you don’t understand. It wasn’t me. I’m certain it wasn’t. Frank, I almost said, maybe she could have— But what was the point? All her perfect mothering of him these past weeks, all that natural maternal wisdom and care. It would only make me look worse.

  You want to be the victim here, she said. The bereaved mother.

  I am the bereaved mother.

  No. You are a woman who killed her child.

  What day is it?

  Thursday.

  When did I get here?

  Tuesday morning.

  Where is my husband?

  He went home.

  When can I see him?

  He does not wish to see you.

  Someone brought me fresh coffee and a cinnamon roll. I was ravenous. My teeth were coated in fur.

  Detective Bergstrom came back into the room. She had changed clothes. A fresh shirt, a navy pantsuit. She was wearing white sneakers. She set a fresh bottle of water down in front of me. Still, she said. They’re out of sparkling.

  She sat down.

  Merry, she said. You are far away from home. But in this case, it is a good thing.

  Swedish justice is not like American justice. We do not look to punish, but to rehabilitate.

  She lifted her arms above her head and stretched. I imagine she is good at yoga. Flexible. I taught yoga for a few months, ran a studio out in Colorado while I lived with Matt, the snowboarding instructor.

  Why am I telling you this? she went on. I am telling you because I want, genuinely, to help you. To get you the help that you maybe have needed for a long time. Do you understand?

  I would not look at her.

  I have been a detective a long time. So long that I have seen more than a few cases just like this. A desperate and depressed mother, unable to cope. An absent father. A child caught up in between. The outcome is tragedy, but we do try to help these women because— Merry, look at me.

  I let her lock me in her gaze.

  Because we know they are not bad women, she said. They are only women who have been pushed to the absolute edge of what they can bear. They do a very, very bad thing. But they can be helped. They can be forgiven. But this must always start with the truth.

  She had more papers in her file. She opened it and found what she wanted.

  Your father. He committed suicide.

  Why are we talking about my father?

  We are talking about state of mind. In 2014, your mother passed. Is that correct?

  It is.

  And how did she die?

  With her tits cut open and her nipples in a surgical bowl beside her. Is that irony or satire? I remember the call, Esmerelda, her housekeeper, phoning to break the news.

  She died during a plastic surgery procedure, I told the detective.

  She had a number of surgeries?

  Yes.

  Was she on any medication for depression?

  I don’t know. She took a lot of painkillers.

  You had a good relationship with her? she asked.

  I shrugged. She was my mother.

  Someone knocked on the door, and Detective Bergstrom jumped up to open it. She said something in Swedish and closed the door quickly behind the man who’d interrupted.

  Unbelievable, she said. A sign says, Do Not Disturb, and still, someone always knocks.

  What about Sam? You consider it a happy marriage.
He is a good husband to you?

  I’m very tired, I said.

  We have only a little more to get through. Sam. What kind of a man is he?

  He’s a good husband, I said.

  Violent.

  No.

  Possessive.

  No.

  Are you sure? He didn’t bring you here to keep you locked up all alone?

  No.

  He seems to be the one in charge. Move here, do this. Have a baby, stay at home. He’s the one who makes all the decisions. Who decides what your life will be.

  No, I said, no.

  She searched my eyes.

  She made another note. She drank from her water bottle.

  Merry, you know what I think. I think it’s like this. Sam messes around, loses his job. He packs you up and ships you off to godforsaken Sweden. And then he leaves you alone all day with a new baby. No friends, no support system. Nothing familiar or friendly. The baby is a trap. You can’t leave. Sam won’t let you, will he?

  Her eyes were shining. The underarms of her jacket were stained wet. She had sweated all the way through her clean shirt.

  So you know what you have there? she said.

  She leaned forward, put her face up close to mine.

  What you have, she said, is motive.

  Sam

  I want her to suffer. I want her to pay.

  In the studio, I edited the clip of Merry hurting Conor, cut it so it would be just that scene, playing on a loop. All the evidence you could need.

  I grabbed my keys from the kitchen counter. Frank had just woken up.

  I’m going to the police station, I said.

  I handed the disc to the detective, sat down beside her while she watched it. She shook her head. She played it again. She sighed.

  You have it now, don’t you? I said. Proof she did it.

  She shook her head.

  No, she said. Your wife has not confessed to anything. She insists she did not kill your son.

  She’s a great fucking actress, I said. I’ll give her that.

  The detective stood and paced the room. I wonder, she said. Maybe she will talk to you. Maybe you’re the person to get something out of her.

  I can’t, I said. I might kill her.

  No, Detective Bergstrom said. But you might force her to tell the truth.

  In the room, Merry looked up and saw me. Her face fell.

  Sam, I didn’t do it. You have to believe me.

  I believe nothing you say, Merry. It was all a lie.

  She shook her head. No, no. Please.

  They’d loaned me a laptop. I turned it to Merry so she could see the screen. I played the footage for her. Her own face reflected back at her, her smile that wasn’t a smile. The embrace of her son that was no embrace.

  Watch, I said.

  She clutched at her waist and moaned. Sick bitch. I wanted to hit her, slap her, make her bleed. Bam. One strike of her head against the corner of the table, her skull would split clean in two. Her brain would leak out, dribble from her nose. Her eyes would roll back in her head, whites to the front, vacant and unseeing.

  This is your wife. For better or worse. Worse could not get lower than this. Revulsion, a sourness the whole body can taste. Do it, I thought, why not? What is there to lose that is not already lost? I leaned forward and she flinched.

  I’ll tell you, Sam, she said. I’ll tell you everything.

  I sat back in the chair.

  She wiped at her eyes. She was hideous. Not even human.

  I waited.

  You’re right, Sam, she said.

  I’m guilty.

  Merry

  I did it, Sam.

  You’re right. I hurt him. I’m guilty of hurting him. I pinched him or squeezed him too hard. I—I made him cry. I don’t know why. I can’t explain. I can’t understand myself. I just felt, I don’t know. So angry. So trapped. It felt like I was suffocating here. Like it wasn’t my life anymore.

  Like it never had been, I said.

  He was watching me, face twisted in a snarl. Hate, so much hate in those eyes.

  I don’t know why I took it out on him. I just—he was there. So innocent and pure, and inside of me, it felt so rotten. So empty. You won’t understand.

  You lied, Merry. You lied about everything. It was all an act.

  No.

  Yes.

  I’m so sorry, Sam. I don’t know how to be more sorry.

  You want forgiveness, he said.

  No.

  You want me to understand.

  You lied to me, too, Sam.

  Bullshit.

  You did. Pretended we moved here for some big change. You thought I wouldn’t find out that you got fired. That you had yet another affair with yet another student.

  Like it mattered, like it made any difference at all.

  He gave a cold laugh. Affairs. He sneered. Do you really want to talk about my affairs?

  I covered my face. I didn’t do it, Sam. You have to believe me.

  You were with him, Merry. He was smothered.

  I shook my head.

  No, Sam. It was. It was another thing I did. I would leave him, you see. I would take him into the woods and then I’d leave him there so I could run. I just wanted—

  Jesus, Merry, you really are something.

  I just needed to run, Sam. I needed to be alone. To move. To feel like there was something just for me. To feel alive. You were always gone; I was always alone. You know I hate to be by myself, you know.

  You loved him too much! I wanted to scream. There was no room left for me.

  Sam looked at me the way you look at a rabid animal. Horror and revulsion. And who could blame him?

  You hurt him, he said. You left him. You wanted him gone.

  No, Sam, no. I loved him, I said. I loved our son.

  Suddenly his hands gripped my throat, squeezing tight, forcing the breath out, the blood up. I gasped for air.

  Our son, he bellowed in my face. Don’t you dare utter those fucking words to me.

  Sam

  After the detective pulled me off of Merry and before she sent me home, she sat me down on one of the gray plastic chairs in the waiting area of the station. She had someone fetch me a paper cup of water from the cooler.

  In your statement, she said, you told us you were at a work meeting the day of the murder. You lied.

  I pulled at the rough beard taking over my face. I said nothing.

  Where were you? Detective Bergstrom asked.

  I finished the water and crushed the white cup into my fist.

  Doctor’s appointment, I said. You can check.

  We will. But why lie about it, Mr. Hurley?

  I shrugged. It’s kind of a personal matter, I said.

  Doctor-patient confidentiality, they won’t tell her a thing. Can’t say why it matters. A feeling, maybe, that I need to be the one to tell Merry the truth. That way it will really hurt. Looking her square in the eyes: Game over, you’re dead.

  I drove from the police station directly to Malin’s place. Pressed on the buzzer until she opened up.

  Sam, I can’t.

  Please, I begged. I needed her. I needed to be in her presence, to feel the warmth of another human. Some faint connection with something other than pain.

  She let me inside and prepared two espressos from the red machine in the kitchenette. Into my cup, she dropped two cubes of sugar.

  I told her everything.

  Back home, the house was too much, sucking everything dry, making it hard to think, to breathe. I walked over the field to Karl’s place and knocked on the door.

  Elsa opened up. Karl’s in the back, she said. He’s going out hunting today.

  I went to the shed to find him.

  Can I join you? I asked.

  Have you been drinking?

  No, I lied.

  He packed up the rest of the gear and we got into the car. We drove, an hour or maybe two, heading west, deep into the mountains.

&nb
sp; Thank you, I said. I need this.

  They practice humane hunting here in Sweden; single-shot kills that deliver a quick death. The animals don’t suffer. All the meat is eaten. It’s the least amount of cruelty you can inflict, which I suppose in some instances is the best way.

  We spent most of the day in the woods, beautiful, crisp mountain air, hundred-year-old trees, silence and endless sky beyond the pines. We crouched low, tracking two mature female elk. The animals were slow, methodical in their grazing. Every now and then, they tensed, prickling at our scent, at the sound of the grass breaking under our boots.

  Karl had loaned me a gun. He didn’t take his eyes off the elk. He signaled with his hand to show I had a clean shot. I watched the animal, the thick ripple of muscle and flesh, the steady gaze, the breath visible in the cold. In the silence, everything was heightened, the wings of a bird taking off into the air, the furious rustling of beetles against the bark.

  The shot rang out, clipped, clear. It echoed through the trees, overruling any other sound. And then the stampede, the beating hearts, the scrambling hooves; the other animals taking flight, running for their lives. Life. Life and then death. This is all it takes.

  She was massive up close. An expanse of once-living creature, the hind legs collapsed in the fall. The tongue lolled out, the eyes staring, accusatory. Why me? they seemed to beg.

  We need to get her home, Karl said.

  Together we tied the legs with twine and heaved the dead animal onto our shoulders, Karl in front, me bringing up the rear. The elk was heavy. Dead weight. I had to stop and shift position, easing the bulk toward my shoulders.