by Avery Flynn
Most days she told herself to ignore them. Then she met Åsa and Kristin when she signed up for gymnastics lessons. They were Mariam's polar opposites: Åsa and Kristin were loud, gregarious girls who never questioned that they belonged. Both were tomboys, always in jeans and sneakers and full of energy. They never sat still very long and they loved dragging Mariam all around Umeå, teaching her everything they thought she needed to know so that she would never be a wallflower.
And while Mariam grew more confident and less reserved, her parents focused on making a success of their careers--her mother was a florist who had big dreams for her new life in Sweden and her father, who'd been a lecturer in literature at the University of Asmara, reinvented himself in Umeå and now, with the help of his cousins, redeveloping houses and commercial property in and around the city.
It didn't take long before her family's success led them out of the small, rented apartment in central Umeå to the1920's terracotta garden villa in Fridhem. They were one of the first non-Swedish families to move there. And it was an accomplishment that Mariam's father always reminded her of, "No one believed we could ever buy that house, Mariam! They said we were aiming too high. And yet here we are."
And when Mariam decided to study international law, it was expected that she would succeed. Wasn't her mother such a successful designer of floral arrangements that she was featured in interior design magazines and TV programs? Wasn't her father voted the entrepreneur of the five years in a row and been honored by the King and Queen of Sweden?
But there was also that vein of resentment. The people who thought the Kidanes didn't deserve their success, who didn't care how hard they'd worked, they still claimed it had been handed to them. When Jonas left for American and the hockey league, the haters were the first ones to whisper that Mariam's luck was running out. She wanted to make them eat crow. She may have walked away from the man she loved but she wasn't a failure. She made sure she graduated at the top of her class and, upon returning to Sweden, fought hard to get a job with the most prestigious international law firm in Stockholm. And she knew she was good at what she did. Åsa and Kristin's lessons in self-confidence still burned bright inside her. Their words of encouragement were her own persona mantra as she worked twice as hard as her fellow junior associates, burning the midnight oil as support for major cases, doing research and combing through dusty files for bits of information that might make or break as case, until she was invited to be a team member and then later offered opportunities to sit second chair on litigation cases.
She wasn't lucky.
She worked her ass off.
She kept her eyes trained on her dreams so she wouldn't think too much about whether she'd made a mistake leaving Jonas. She tried to date, but her hours at work made it difficult. Then she'd met Zacharias. Like her, his family was from East Africa, and had come to Sweden from Eritrea around the same time as Mariam's. They were rivals at work, both aiming for the same brass ring of becoming partners at the firm, but they were also friends. He challenged her and she liked that. He made her laugh, he infuriated her sometimes. That they inevitably began dating, then living together seemed the natural step. For four years, they were the golden couple--two successful children of East African parents who'd made it in Sweden. But as much as Mariam loved Zacharias, she never felt that...spark. He was perfect on paper for her. He was perfect husband and son-in-law material and--even though her parents liked Jonas, they adored Zacharias. Of course they did, he understood their mother tongue of Tigrinya, could relate to the everyday struggles they'd endured as asylum-seekers and the just-beneath-the-surface resentments they met as success stories.
But that indefinable spark, that little explosion that made her heart beat a little faster or heightened every one of her senses? It never materialized for them. And sometimes lying in bed next to Zacharias she wondered if she could spend the rest of her life without ever experiencing the intense longing she'd had with Jonas.
There had to be someone who'd elicit that wonderful explosion for her again.
We should live everyday like it's our last.
That was the advice her grandmother had once given Mariam. She'd tried to follow it, even when her caseload had been so heavy that she felt like she spent more time buried under mountains of files searching for that little kernel of information that would give her the advantage over the opposing side in the court room. She'd thrown herself into it when she decided that studying law was more important than being Jonas's girlfriend. No...it wasn't that it was more important, she corrected herself as she rushed away from him, the one regret in her past. She didn't look back. She didn't need to be reminded of how much she'd once loved him. And, if she were honest with herself, she still did.
"It's always been him." She let the words slip out into the air. Outside now, the sun was so blindingly bright. She was glad she'd left the clouds behind in Stockholm, glad to be home in Umeå even if it felt a little like she was hiding. But coming home had nothing to do with hiding and everything to do with finally realizing that she didn't want to spend her life in conference rooms and courtrooms.
She'd been volunteering for the last three years, helping children who'd arrived in Sweden alone as refugees and who often got lost in the system. It had started as something to do to fill the weekends after she'd called off her engagement to Zacharias, who had been so.... nice about it. And he was...nice. Mariam couldn't pretend he wasn't. He'd been good to her, but...she never felt that pull, that longing for him she always associated with love.
Of course she did.
She'd felt it with Jonas.
Even that first moment when she'd seen him striding in the hallways of school with his teammates, her heart had felt as though it would burst at the sight of him. That first time when their eyes locked as he walked by, she'd wanted to ask her friends who he was. Someone--was it Kristin or Åsa-- gushed that Jonas Magnussen was too hot for words. And she'd seen how his face flushed red and he'd glanced away. She didn't think he believed it. That he was gorgeous, that they all stared after him. He was too nice, too humble. Even when he was interviewed in the local papers when the youth hockey team he played on made it to the national championships, he'd shrugged off any talk of it being because of his prowess on the ice and said, "We're a good team, that's all there is to it."
It was ice that finally brought them together. Mariam hated ice skating, but that winter her friends wanted to skate at the new rink in the park. It was part of the Christmas market that took over the part from the end of November until Boxing Day. Åsa and Kristin had been skating all their lives. They'd learned as children, but Mariam who'd spent much of her childhood in Eritrea had never really got the hang of it. While her friends skated so gracefully and made it look easy, she trailed behind them, holding onto the wall and trying to stay upright, hoping no one noticed her.
She'd managed two laps around the ice without falling when she lost her balance and landed hard on her hands and knees.
"Är du okej?" She looked up just as she was struggling to her feet and nearly fell again. Jonas had come up beside her. Even then, he was so handsome--how could he not understand that they were all a little in love with him? He held his hands out to her. "Are you okay?"
She took them gratefully and nodded. "I'm not very good at this."
"You were doing just fine for a while," he said as he helped her up. Their breath fogged in the cold evening air. She thought he would let go of her hands, but he didn't. Instead he pulled her along, slowly, as he helped her get her bearings again. "Don't look at your feet. Look at me... just keep focused on where we're going."
She remembered how strong his hands were and how she didn't want him to let go. He skated so that he was facing her and she was amazed at how at ease he was. He'd glance occasionally over his shoulder, but he seemed to know the ice, sense when someone was behind him, when the curves were coming.
"Look at me," he said to her softly. "Don't look at your feet, look at me."
"Yes, you do," he countered with a smile. "And I know yours."
"What is it then?"
"Mariam. Mariam Kidane." He grinned at her. "I pass your house everyday on my way to hockey practice."
She nearly stumbled again, but he caught her...and then he kissed her cheek. It was so gentle. So soft, and yet the heat of his lips on her cold skin made her feel as though he'd branded her forever.
That was how it began.
Two teenagers on an ice-skating rink one winter evening. Mariam had thought perhaps once Christmas was over, he would move on, but he confessed that he'd been interested in her since she'd first moved to Umeå. How had she not noticed him before? They'd gone to school together for years and she had not seen him. Of course, Mariam was the girl whose head was always in a book. Her parents wanted her to fit in, to feel as free as any other Swedish girl even if her skin was darker, but they'd also instilled her in the belief that success was the goal, not simply a nice option.
Until she met Jonas, she'd been the girl who never had to think twice about what was more important. Of course it was her studies. And then she fell in love. Suddenly, hours spent poring over books in the library weren't nearly as interesting as watching Jonas practice. She kept her grades up, but she had to work a little harder now to stay ahead. Her friends teased her a little. Mariam who'd never seemed remotely interested in boys, who once boasted that she would change the world, not follow around a man, was now so besotted that she'd rather sit shivering in an ice hall and waiting for Jonas to finish practice, than hanging out with them.
For months, they pretended they were just testing the waters with one another. Her parents didn't believe in dating, and thought she ought to keep her eyes focused on college. They tolerated Jonas coming by and ogling their daughter. She was almost afraid to call him her boyfriend. But when she lay in bed at night she'd whisper his name in the darkness, "Jonas Gabriel Torbjörn Magnussen..." and imagine how wonderful it felt to be kissed by him and how much she wished they didn't have to pretend they were just friends who liked each other a lot. No one wanted to admit that there were people at their school who didn't approve of mixed race couples. The neo-Nazi skinheads who shouted racial slurs at Mariam and the other immigrants. She held her head high and ignored them, but there were only so many times she could endure them spitting at her or calling her names before it began to eat away at her. The only time she didn't think about it was when she was with Jonas.
In the early days of their relationship, everything seemed so easy, she thought, as she climbed out of the taxi. She dragged her wheeled suitcase behind her, wishing it didn't make so much noise. She wasn't in the mood to stop and chat with her elderly neighbor, Fru Svenningsson. As much as Mariam liked her, the older woman had a tendency to chatter away, forgetting that not everyone was retired or had all the time in the world. Today, Mariam didn't have time for a long, rambling chat. She needed to get to the center. Last night, Åsa had called her and said they were expecting visitors later in the week--the mayor of Umeå and the Minister for Justice and Migration were to pay them a visit on Friday and they still needed to finish painting the new bedrooms and putting together furniture.
There was always something that needed doing, which was one of the things Mariam loved about being at the center. What she did there felt meaningful. She would never be a millionaire, not that she'd ever wanted to be one. She'd thought that by becoming a lawyer she could help make the world better, even if it were only in some small way. But every case handed to her seemed only to reaffirm that--even in just, equal Sweden--there were those who were somehow untouched by the law. Why help them when she could help children who'd come to Sweden for the very reasons that her parents had sought asylum there? To escape war. But those children hadn't been as lucky as she'd been. She'd had her parents, and her cousins who'd already settled in Umeå. The children she helped now had no one, and she was determined to give them lives here that would not fall through the cracks of society.
Mariam hurried along the path to the house, managing to get to the front door before Fru Svenningsson saw her. Åsa had also mentioned a secret visitor coming today. Usually it meant her parents were in town. But she knew it wasn't them this time. She'd only just seen them last week at the villa they now called home on the southern tip of the island of Mallorca.
As soon as she was inside the house, she let her emotions get the better of her. Oh God...he hadn't changed. No... he had. His face was harder now, the sharp, strong angles of his cheekbones and jaw more prominent. There was a weariness to him now that she didn't recognize, but when a fan approached him and asked to take a selfie, he managed to turn on the high-powered smile she'd seen him flash so many times on TV. The exhaustion that etched Jonas's faced vanished and he transformed into the league star he'd become. She'd watched him, fascinated by how easily he'd done it. The mask, he used to call it. Once he was in America and suddenly the cameras were trained on him, he'd needed the mask to deal with the pressure of the media and to give interviews in a language that was not his mother tongue. Sometimes it had felt like he'd become another person.
"Stop thinking about him," Mariam muttered to herself as she carried the suitcase up the stairs to her bedroom, "it's not like you'll ever see him again."
It had been too long anyway.
One chance encounter meant nothing.
Her exodus from his life was set in motion by one fateful phone call.
With her parents out of town, they'd had the house to themselves. As soon as they left for the airport, Jonas came over, just as he'd always done, with his duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Three weeks was what they had. Three weeks to live together every moment he wasn't on the ice and she wasn't studying. And they'd both been looking forward to it. There'd be no one to police them. No one saying that Jonas couldn't stay too late or reminding Mariam that she needed to get up early the next day.
That night, they lay in her bed the windows open and a lilac-scented breeze cooling their skin. The summer heat had begun much earlier than usual, leaving a dry, dusty feel to everything. At least then, the humid breeze seemed to sweep away that dustiness. Mariam lay with her back to Jonas. It was still too hot to lay tangled in one another's limbs, and her thoughts too jumbled to allow sleep to come.
Earlier in the day, the phone call had come.
The one he'd been anticipating and she'd been dreading.
They'd been lying together in the sun chair, Jonas's lips on hers, her hands so anxious to undo the button fly of his cargo shorts that she could barely control them, when the phone rang.
"Don't answer it," she'd breathed out in between his kisses. She loved how he kissed her, how he lingered over her mouth and sometimes traced the pad of his thumb along the curve of her lower lip. Each touch set off little explosions of desire within her.
He'd paced the yard as he spoke in almost too formal English with his agent and the general manager of the team that had drafted him. His excitement had been palpable, practically emanating from him and touching everything in its wake. And she'd lain in her sun chair, her sunglasses hiding her distress as she pretended to browse through the catalogues for American colleges he'd ordered for her. He was in the pro leagues now.
At one point, he looked over his shoulder at her and gave her thumbs-up. She'd plastered a smile on her face. She would not ruin his day with her fears.
Once the call ended, Jonas had been unable to sit still. He'd talked about the future, the words tumbling out of his mouth so quickly that she couldn't keep up with him. That was the gist of it. The league had been the other woman in their relationship, always lingering in the shadows, waiting for that moment when she could have Jonas to herself.
And in the end, the league won.
Mariam tried to put Jonas out of her thoughts as she showered and changed into clothes that were nice enough to show that she was in charge, but that she wasn't a
bove taking care of the nitty-gritty details of running the center. If her mother had been there, she would have recommended a dress. Sophia Kidane thought dresses were always the best option for a proper young woman. She'd never liked the skinny jeans Mariam had always favored. And even now, when she was expecting a surprise guest, Mariam wasn't about to put on anything as impractical as a pantsuit or a dress and pearls. She put on a pair of dark blue jeans which she belted with a colorful silk scarf, and a white oxford shirt. She kept her hair in a loose braid, not in the mood at all to bother with trying to style it when she knew that in this heat it would only do what it wanted.
She jogged back downstairs, reminding herself with every step to remember to unpack once she was home again. A fine sheen of dust had settled everywhere. She'd need to clean too, unless she called the cleaning service her parents had always used. She hated using a service when she was capable of tidying up herself. She just never really found the time. There was always so much to do at the center--grant papers to be filed, a sick child needing to go to the doctor's or an excursion to be planned, fundraising... She'd gone all the way to Stockholm in between seeing her parents, hoping for a commitment of more funds from the government and been met with a wait and see. She'd have to call in favors. There was enough money to keep them going for a while, but Mariam knew she could never take it for granted. Promises from politicians were like dust in the wind.
She took a quick look at her reflection in the mirror above her hall console table. The days she'd spent in Mallorca with her parents had thankfully given her skin the sort of glow she loved. Her sallow, winter complexion was finally gone. Once Jonas called her a lioness. He'd said it was because she had a quiet ferocity that turned him on, and she'd laughed it off but she knew what he meant. Sometimes she was a little too intense and focused. She went after what she wanted with the sort of determination that often got women labeled as too ambitious or bitchy. She didn't want to be one of those women who sat on the sidelines waiting for life to happen to her. It was why she'd gone to law school in London and why she'd ultimately chosen her future over Jonas's. She couldn't sideline her dreams waiting for his to come true...