Just FYI, Frank, he wrote, I’m still going to be seeing other women.
Of course, I thought, but of course.
I replied with something jaunty and witty. Inside, it tightened, that part that contracts and hardens with every indignity. Cruel Karl, coward Sam, both of them so full of need, so desperate to stave off the boredom and rot. Marriage. What a hoax. And still they make it seem as though it’s the prize. As though there’s something wrong with you if no one’s asked.
I ordered coffee and a kannelbulle. They might be the only things I’ll miss around here.
Please leave. Please go.
Familiar words.
Thomas’s words not too many months before. Simon’s before that. The sting is always the same. In the gut, and something in the throat that catches and sticks. All the words you cannot say.
You don’t belong here, Frank.
No, I never do, do I.
Perhaps they deserve each other. The lot of them, on this dreary island they imagine to be some kind of paradise. I despise them. I pity them.
I wondered about Elsa, alone in a prison cell. So fragile, a frail woman made of glass. Still, underneath is the thing they never see. The rage, a low-burning pit of fire that boils away, slowly, invisibly, right from the start. Maybe when they say, Sit with your legs crossed, or when the first boy grabs at your ponytail, or the first man slips his hand somewhere uninvited, or the first boyfriend tells you all the parts you are missing, all the ways you will never be woman enough. It’s there, it’s there, you try to ignore it, you try to hold it down, shhh, shhh, smile and play nice. But always it is there. And sometimes, it can take it no more. It makes itself known.
I finished up and called for the bill. The waitress was young and full in the face. I paid her and she thanked me profusely for the generous tip.
How I longed to slap the flush of youth from her.
Merry
Frank always makes sure to get what she wants. To take it. She always finds a way.
I could see it now, clear as day.
She wanted it all.
The phone rang. Detective Bergstrom.
Merry, she said. Unfortunately, there’s not been much headway here with Elsa in the last twenty-four hours. She sighed. She’s very fragile, very close to a breakdown, or in the midst of one. She had been trying for a child, she did miscarry, she did also— Well, she had strong feelings about what kind of a mother you were.
Yes, I said. I’m sure she did.
She is very fragile, the detective repeated. A woman on the edge. But she hasn’t the stomach for murder. There were no traces of her DNA to be matched to the crime scene. Her doctor had put her on bed rest right after the miscarriage, so it’s unlikely that she could have managed the trail. She’d have been too weak still.
But the clearing, I said. She was there, like I told you.
Detective Bergstrom sounded tired. No, she knows it well; she’s lived here all her life.
What about the blanket? I said. In their barn.
The blanket has no trace evidence to connect it to Elsa. She also suffers from bad dust allergies—she’s never in the barn. Which means it’s more than likely it was planted there. Something for us to find. To distract us.
I see, I said. I suppose I couldn’t imagine it would have been her.
She sighed again. I’m sorry, Merry. We really are exploring all the options here.
I know, I said.
She was quiet a moment on the other end of the line.
Merry, she said. Can you think of any reason why your friend Frank might have wanted your son dead?
I did not hesitate. Yes, I said, I can think of a few.
Merry
She came back late, shivering from the cold, red-faced and damp from the day’s constant drizzle. I didn’t ask where she’d been. Just poured her a glass of wine.
Here, I said, you look like you could use this.
She burst into tears. Oh, Merry, what an awful time. Everyone is so sad. So angry. Everyone is being so cruel to each other.
I watched her. I sipped my wine.
Yes, I said. We are at our worst. All of us. We have all done terrible things, haven’t we. Shameful, terrible things.
She did not look at me. She took a sip of wine. She wiped at her tears.
Did you hear anything more about Elsa? she said.
No, I lied. She’s still being questioned.
They really think it might be her?
Well, they found one of the baby’s blankets, over in Karl’s barn.
My God.
Yes. I poured more wine. Hard to believe, isn’t it.
She shuddered.
Can you imagine it, I said, following me through the woods, hiding, waiting for her chance—and then taking him?
She was shaking her head. But did she mean to? I mean, kill him. Did she really want him dead?
You tell me, I said.
What?
You tell me, Frank, I said again. I was in her face, so close I could spit in her eye. I had her pinned against the counter with the force of my weight, but she was not trying to get free.
You did it, Frank, didn’t you? I hissed.
Merry, please.
Say it. I grabbed a fistful of her hair; I jerked her head back. It was you. It was you.
Fire in my belly and deadly calm on the outside, I breathed in her smell and her fear.
You want to believe that. You want to blame me, she said.
She had started to struggle against me. I rammed a knee into her crotch to hold her down. Right in her cunt.
At first, I couldn’t believe it, I said. That you could go that far. That you could do something so terrible.
Merry, you’ve always been good at making me the villain. Everything is always on me, isn’t it.
I took her head and slammed it against the cupboard, heard the crack of skull on wood.
Shut up, I said.
She smiled at me. Perfect Merry and her perfect life. You’re the fraud. You always have been. You’re the only reason he’s dead.
Again, I took her head and slammed. She turned at the last second and hit the wood side on. Her cheek split in two. Blood ran into her mouth.
So jealous. Always so jealous, so sick with envy because your own pathetic life never could measure up. Poor little Frank. So jealous you have to murder a baby.
She writhed and twisted; she was strong but I was stronger. Feral like a wild cat. Rage and hate and desperate, desperate regret. I pushed my knee in further, deeper. I wanted her to hurt. I wanted her to bleed. More, more.
You didn’t even love him, she screamed. You wanted him gone. You were hurting him—you were—
She managed to push me off, to claw at my face with her nails. How we must have looked in the dead of night, scratching, biting, drawing blood. The two of us reduced to our animal selves. Primal and crazed, tearing each other apart.
This is what it comes down to. Winning is survival.
I stumbled back and fell to the ground. She was on top of me, straddling me, face up close to mine, blood dripping down in drops like tears. I tried to get away, scrambled for the living room, but she came after me, she held me against the floor.
I loved him, she cried. I loved him.
But you, she said coldly. You don’t deserve to be loved. And you didn’t deserve to be a mother.
She leaned closer; she opened her mouth and bit at my lip. Then she sat up. She wiped her mouth. Blood streaked across her face like some kind of tribal markings.
I know, she hissed. I know all your secrets, Merry.
The hate rose up, the adrenaline surged. I freed my right hand and yanked her shirt collar back, choking her, holding tight.
Her face was red, then purple, her eyes rolling back. I held on. I pulled. She struggled and I pulled some more. She squirmed and gagged, mouth open but no air going in. I watched.
Merry, said a voice.
I looked to see where it had come from. Sam, stand
ing in the dark. The man in the shadows, watching the show.
I turned back to Frank, suddenly shocked by the scene. My hand opened, the release sent her staggering back against the wall. As she fell, she knocked one of the masks off of its hook. It crashed to the floor. The ancient wood cracked right down the middle, and the face split into two dark halves.
Sam poured himself another glass of whiskey, and left the room.
Frank
Detective Bergstrom is one of those overly empathetic types. She must have done her share of psychology seminars. Perhaps even a few of the more New Age varieties. Grinberg or somatic experiencing. Something bodily.
She kept watching my hands. She kept looking at my throat as I spoke, to see if I swallowed or twitched, to see if she could read my anxiety. Or my guilt. She has a tiny tattoo on her arm, in the crook of her elbow. It looks like a feather.
Tell me, Frances, she said. Where were you on the day of Conor’s death?
It’s Frank, I said.
Right, she said. I’m sorry. Frank.
I was at Merry’s house.
All day.
All day.
You didn’t go out, take a walk.
No.
You knew where she was going.
Yes.
That she usually left the baby at the clearing.
I knew she was going for a hike. I knew she went every day. With the baby.
Did you ever go with her?
No, she didn’t ever want company. Now I see why, of course. It all makes sense.
Did you know the route that she took?
No.
You’re certain.
Yes.
You never followed her.
Why would I do that?
Your DNA was found on the child. On the blanket used to smother him.
Of course it was, I said coolly. I was helping to look after him. You must know by now that Merry wasn’t much of a mother.
You’d been with him earlier that morning. Holding him.
Yes.
How long?
I’m sorry?
How long were you with him? How long did you have him in your arms?
I shrugged. From the time he woke up. I was awake early. I played with him, fed him breakfast. Like usual.
She wrote it down. Drew an asterisk on top of the page.
Elsa, I was told, has been ruled out as a suspect. We passed one another on my way into the station. I smiled and said hello. One mustn’t forget one’s manners, no matter the circumstances.
Tell me about your relationship with Merry, Detective Bergstrom said. You two are old friends. Friends since you were little girls.
That’s right.
Those can be difficult relationships, can’t they. Lots of jealousies, lots of old upsets. Lots of secrets.
Well, I said, that doesn’t sound like much of a friendship at all.
She examined my face. It’s quite a gash you have there.
I touched my cheek. I hadn’t even tried to cover up the dried blood and bruising with makeup before the police fetched me from the house this morning.
Looks like a fight, she said. Vicious.
I said nothing.
You want to tell me what happened? What’s going on inside that house? Looks bad enough that you could lay a charge.
I don’t have any intention of doing that, I said. It was my own fault.
I see, she nodded. Walked into a door or a cupboard?
I held her gaze. A door, I said.
Let’s go back to this friendship. Merry and you.
We’ve been friends for thirty years, I said. Best friends. Like sisters.
Sisters fight.
I suppose, I said.
Do you two fight a lot?
Well, as little girls, yes.
What did you fight about?
I don’t know. Silly things. Broken dolls or stolen toys. She was always at my house. My mother looked after her in the afternoons. She stayed over a lot.
You didn’t mind?
Sometimes. My mother made me give up my bed. I’d sleep on the floor. I always had to be nice to her.
You didn’t like that.
No.
You didn’t want her there.
My mother always took her side. I was always the one who got the blame.
She wrote something down in her file. I hate that, she said.
What?
When someone tries to shift the blame onto someone else.
When you were older, what did you fight about then?
I shrugged. I don’t like remembering those years. All that discontent.
Normal teenage girl things, I offered. You know, with all the hormones…I trailed off.
Tell me, she said.
Well, we fought about boys. Other girls. Clothes.
You were jealous of her.
Maybe.
Why is that?
Her parents were very wealthy. Big house. Fancy holidays. She had a huge allowance. She didn’t have to get a job.
It wasn’t like that for you.
No. My father was a gambler. We had to move in with my grandmother.
Not easy.
I shared a bed with an eighty-year-old woman every night.
You must have been very angry.
For a while.
Was Merry a good friend to you then?
I don’t know. I spent a lot of time at her house. Most of the time.
A bit of a reversal from before.
Yes.
Did she mind you being there?
I don’t know. We just hung out. Watched TV, listened to music. I spent a lot of time with her mother.
Doing what?
Daughterly things, I guess. Shopping, getting our nails done.
With Merry.
Just Maureen and I.
Where was Merry?
She didn’t want to join us. She didn’t like her mother.
You did?
I understood her.
Detective Bergstrom stretched out her legs under the table. She shook her head.
Confusing, she said.
What?
This friendship. The way you grew up.
Perhaps.
Did you resent Merry for what she had?
No.
Why not?
Because it was never enough.
How do you mean?
I mean Merry’s always been…empty somehow. No matter what she has.
Empty, she said. Interesting.
Is it? I’d think it was more tragic, really.
The detective shot me a tight smile.
How about as you got older? As women.
I shrugged. We’ve always been close. Very close.
Very different paths you chose.
Yes.
And you’re happy, with your life?
Oh yes, I said. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.
A career.
It’s more than a career.
Is it?
I’m very good at what I do.
She nodded. Yes, so I heard.
She smiled at me again. I wondered if she’d already have called them, if she knew the truth about my job. Or the lack thereof.
How about Merry? she said.
What about her?
Is her life a success, do you think?
Her son has just been murdered, I said.
Before that.
You can’t tell, can you. What another person wants from life. What makes them happy. If they even know what that is.
But you’re happy, she said. Single. Unmarried. No children.
She looked at me and said it again. No children of your own.
No, I said.
Do you want children, Frank? You think you’d like to be a mother?
I smiled. I tried to contain it. Maybe one day, I said.
And a husband.
Maybe.
Someone like Sam.
I’d hope not.
You don’t like him?
What sort of man is he?
The kind who cheats on his wife.
Ah, she said. Yes.
He tried to sleep with me, I said. As though I’d do that to my friend.
Your best friend, she corrected. How extraordinary.
Funny you say that about married men, she continued. Because you were conducting an affair with Mr. Andersson.
Who?
Karl. The neighbor.
Well, I said, these things happen.
Was that why you tried to frame Elsa for Conor’s murder?
She looked at me, her clear blue eyes sparkling with self-satisfaction. We’re very thorough, she said. We traced the call, the tip-off that alerted us to Elsa’s state of mind. Her miscarriage.
I yawned. I have not been sleeping well these past few nights.
Another strange thing, Detective Bergstrom said. Your DNA was all over the blanket the police officers found in Mr. Andersson’s barn.
That’s not strange at all, I said. I told you. I cared for Conor all the time. I loved him very much.
Mm, she said. Love.
We watched each other from our opposing sides of the room. No solidarity here. No sisterhood.
I wonder, Detective Bergstrom said. If it didn’t make you jealous. That Merry had it all. The baby, the husband. You didn’t want to…trade places? Or ruin things for her, somehow?
I let out a laugh.
It’s a funny suggestion?
I leaned forward. Detective, to tell you the truth, I said, Merry has always been jealous of me.
Is that so?
It is.
And why would she be jealous of you, Frank?
I rolled my eyes. Come on, I said. Great school, MBA at Harvard, a fantastic career. I’ve lived all over the world, traveled—I have friends, a wonderful life. And I’ve done it all on my own.
Detective Bergstrom was looking at me. So you think that somehow Merry feels like she hasn’t achieved as much as you have?
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