You Were Made for This

by Michelle Sacks

  Merry. Wife.

  Mother of my child.

  Merry

  We lay a long time in each other’s arms. Saying nothing, just feeling the warmth of soft breath against blue skin.

  After we dried off, we made our way back to the ferry. It was too long to wait for the next one; we were too cold, chilled to the bone.

  Come, Sam said, shivering.

  We rented one of the cabins, like last time. We pulled the extra blankets from the cupboard and slipped naked into the bed, the only way to recover heat.

  I closed my eyes. Moved my toes to try and circulate the blood. I felt the familiar solidity of Sam’s shape against my back, his smell and the pattern of his breathing. Shallow, and a little bit urgent.

  He could have left me. Should have, perhaps.

  What did I feel in that water, apart from the ice? Not regret. Not even sadness.

  Just absence.

  Sam, looking at me with all that disgust, all his great, aching disappointment at the lost things.

  Under the water, I drifted with the current—how you live is how you die, perhaps. Floating, floating, no anchor, no compass. Just the pull of some unknown direction, calling me toward it.

  You are free. You are free.

  Frank’s gift to her friend. I could see how she would think of it this way. How she would believe in the mercy of what she did.

  But a gift is sometimes a curse. Freedom, freedom. What are you supposed to do with something so precious as this?

  Poor Frank. Crushed. Banished once again, when she wanted only my heart. This could have been my gift to her. All she has ever needed.

  But I could never give it.

  Conor’s face I saw, down in the depths of the water. Not crying, not smiling, just that blank stare he saved for me. Watching, waiting to see what I would do next.

  My son, my child. I wanted to feel sorrier. Sadder. I wanted to feel more of anything. I looked at his face, the child wronged. The lie in the lie in the lie. I floated and drifted, weightless and frozen all the way through. I’m sorry, I’m sorry; I have always been a sorry woman. It is the end, I thought, and what of it? I surrendered. I would make no fuss. I would resist no fate. I never have. I expect I never will.

  I think that was when I felt Sam’s arms. Coming for me. Cutting through the water and the silence. Pulling me out. Claiming me for his own.

  I was alive.

  Perhaps I was forgiven.

  Or born anew.

  Here we go again, Merry.

  Now we are here. Sam and Merry, Merry and Sam. This must be what fate has settled on. I stretched my limbs, felt the blood now hot under my skin.

  I am here. I am here.

  In the bed, which smelled of mothballs and lemon soap, Sam moved his body so that he was facing me. He smiled, a different face from earlier. Something new in his eyes. He wrapped me close and bent his head low against mine. Then into my ear, he whispered softly the words.

  Let’s make a baby.

  Acknowledgments

  I am eternally grateful to the dream team at Writers House: the unrivaled Amy Berkower and Genevieve Gagne-Hawes, whose masterful insight, support, and guidance are absolutely everything a writer could wish for. Immense thanks also to Alice Martin for her incisive edits on later drafts, and to Maja Nikolic and team for their deft handling of foreign rights.

  I am indebted to Reagan Arthur, Emily Giglierano, and the team at Little, Brown and Company in the United States, and Kate Mills and the team at HQ in the United Kingdom, for their endless enthusiasm, expertise, and care in the handling of both book and writer. I could not have been in better hands.

  I will forever be grateful beyond measure to my parents, Norman and Avril Sacks, and my sister, Lara Wiese, for their unconditional love, support, and wisdom, and for being my first storytellers, best readers, and eternal cheerleaders.

  For my dearest friendships, I am hugely grateful to Lisa King, Carla Kreuser, and Frankie Morgan.

  And finally, my deepest gratitude to Maroje, for his wholehearted love and support, for his input, patience, and transcendental hugs through each draft, for making my life infinitely more wonderful—and for booking us that cabin in the Swedish woods.

  About the Author

  Michelle Sacks grew up in South Africa. Her story collection Stone Baby was published by Northwestern University Press in 2017. Her earlier writing has been published in African Pens and New Contrast, and by Akashic Books, and she was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2014. You Were Made for This is her first novel.

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