The Boy at the Door

by Alex Dahl

  ‘Tobias, sweetie, you have a visitor who has come from Sandefjord to see you.’ I sit up fast, and place the iPad on the floor next to the bed. Downstairs, the woman with the sad smile, Laila, who I hate, sits on one of the blue wicker chairs. She smiles sadly. She is the one who took me away from the family, so I turn to run back upstairs to my room, but Hannah, the ‘family member’, is blocking my way in the doorway. Upstairs, Sigrid is screaming and thumping something against the wall. Laila pretends like she doesn’t notice.

  ‘Tobias,’ says Laila, her voice soft like she is whispering to a baby. I shake my head. ‘Will you come back to Sandefjord with me?’ I shake my head again. I know what this lady is. She’s a liar.

  ‘I have to tell you something, Tobias. Many things, in fact. But first, will you please come back to Sandefjord with me? Some very bad things have happened to you, and I understand you are angry. But your family is waiting for you, and they are hoping that you will come home for Christmas.’

  In the car, I say nothing. Laila made me bring everything I have with me in a suitcase that Hannah packed for me. I guess this means I’m not coming back here, and that makes me happy. Unless it’s like with Sigrid, where they’ve found me a family, but they might send me back here if they don’t like me that much after a while. I want to ask lots of questions, but I don’t want to speak with Laila. We drive away from the ‘home’ and I look around the little town. It says ‘Notodden’ on a sign and there is a gray lake and some mountains in the distance. Nobody ever took me out so all I’ve seen of Notodden is the garden of the ‘home’ where I played football with Hamed. Maybe I’ll miss him a little bit. When I left, he came to the car and said, ‘Bye bye, mon frère.’ It means brother because he’s told me that.

  I have to sit up more straight and watch the road because I feel sick. The road is windy. Maybe Laila thinks that means I want to talk, because she keeps looking at me in the mirror and smiling, and it’s not a sad smile anymore. It’s a very happy smile and I don’t think she knows that I’m not happy about being taken somewhere else today, even though I wasn’t happy about being at the ‘home’ either.

  ‘The girls need your help decorating the tree,’ she says. What girls? I say nothing, but try to picture them, these new sisters. ‘Hermine has made you something special,’ she says next, watching me. For a minute, I wonder whether it could be a joke, and that she said it to be cruel, but nobody who works with children is allowed to say or do mean things, they write that everywhere. I look at her and now I actually want to say something, but I can’t. I open my mouth, but a low cry comes out – the screaming cat noise again.

  ‘Oh, honey,’ says Laila, and her eyes are filling with tears that she doesn’t wipe away. ‘Oh, sweet boy, they can’t wait to see you.’ I don’t want to cry in front of her, or laugh or anything, because I hate her, but maybe I don’t so much now. I begin to laugh, a strange giggle that I can’t stop, it’s a bit like popcorn popping in the pan – when you think it’s over, there is another pop, and then another. I want her to drive so fast the car lifts a bit off the ground. She does drive fast, and after a while we leave the windy road and merge onto the motorway that leads to Sandefjord – I recognize it because the family took me to Tønsberg to buy things in a big shopping center once. And then we are in Sandefjord, driving through the center, and I recognize everything like maybe it’s home. I am so happy I want to shout out of the window. When we approach the family’s house, I can see many cars in the driveway.

  Laila slows down and says to me, ‘There is another very big surprise for you inside, Tobias. Are you okay?’

  I nod, and even give her a big smile. ‘Thank you,’ I say, and then the door is opened and the mother in the family almost pulls me out of the car and lifts me up and hugs me. The father is there, too, and he rubs my back. The girls are waving from a window upstairs.

  ‘I love you,’ the mother whispers in my ear, and I wish I didn’t cry in front of them, but they are crying, too, so it’s okay. The mother slowly puts me back down on the ground by the front door. I look at the wooden heart sign next to the door, the one that says ‘Welcome to the Wilborg family!’ Underneath, it now says: ‘Cecilia, Johan, Nicoline, Hermine & Tobias.’

  ‘Tobias, there is something I have to tell you.’ She looks up at the father, who nods. ‘So many terrible things have happened, but it’s all over now. You’re home now. I will explain everything to you, my darling. But first, there is someone upstairs who can’t wait to see you. It’s my father.’ I feel confused because I don’t know her father, and maybe I want to go to my room first and put the marbles and the cards back in the three drawers, but I feel strange, like all my thoughts are being thought at the same time, like I don’t know how to move my arms and legs. I think of the swirls in the wood on that table, how they reminded me of the pattern on the tree stub at Moffa’s farm. The father lifts me up in his arms and carries me up the stairs. There is a loud repeated sound coming from upstairs and when we come into the big living room a small white shape comes flying towards us and I cry out but then I realize that it’s a dog and see it has a brown spot on its back and it really is Baby and then I look up and standing there is Moffa and he is crying like I’ve never seen an old man cry before and I hold Baby to my chest, and Moffa holds me to his chest very hard and we just stay like that.

  25

  It’s funny how, with time, most things really do come together. I’ve always believed that, I really have. Yes, everyone was very angry. Still are, I suppose. The police, my father, Georg Sylling, Johan, and so on, but let’s face it, how angry can you really be with someone who has suffered as much as I have, and who on top of it actually has the statement to prove she is mentally unstable? I can’t leave town, and am still under investigation, but prison looks unlikely, according to Sylling. Even after they produced the CCTV footage from the post office. Insanity, said Sylling. Completely insane, no doubt about it.

  More importantly, Tobias came home. My father and my mother spoke for the first time in over twenty years, and as mad as it sounds, he is now staying with her in the house that was once their marital home, so he can spend time with Tobias every day until we work out what happens next. Johan, well, Johan is very tired. I think a part of him has always feared me; like his gut instinct had always told him that one day, I’d be the one to burn his heart and life on the bonfire. He said he might need to go away for a few days because it’s like he can’t see me, only what I’ve done. Please don’t leave me, I said then, my head in his lap, the winter sunlight picking gray out of my husband’s hair. I’m not leaving, he said and I have to believe him, because now, more than ever, I need to keep this family together. The girls and Tobias have become incredibly tight-knit – it’s like he’s the glue that finally made the family whole.

  It has been decided that no further action will be taken with regard to Tobias having killed Krysztof Mazur. He will receive intensive counseling and support from social services in the years to come, and it is my hope that he himself will grow up to forget his part in that awful man’s death. Camilla Stensland, for all her shortcomings, managed to put two and two together in terms of Anni’s murder, and uncovered CCTV footage from the Shell gas station next to Meny. While it doesn’t show the spot where Anni and I met, and where I hit her, it does show a red Skoda parked behind the car wash, all the lights off, a man matching Pawel’s description smoking inside, and then, at 10.47 p.m. leaving the vehicle and walking towards the boatyard, where I’d just left Anni.

  Tomorrow is the last day of 2017, and it is my intention to go into the new year cleansed and absolved of everything that’s happened. It seems like I will avoid a prison sentence thanks to Sylling’s relentless campaigning to assert that I’ve been mentally unstable ever since my first pregnancy with Nicoline, and so not really responsible for my actions in the years since. The police, on the other hand, seem to believe that I did everything I did calculatingly and in cold blood, and only became mentally unstable this autum
n, when Tobias turned up. The thing is, these people know very little about me and the internal processes I’ve been through. I will win. I always do. Fact. As long as I have Johan and the children, I can overcome anything.

  *

  Tobias runs off as soon as my father has parked the car, trailed by a wildly excited Baby. My father looks momentarily alarmed but I smile reassuringly at him, and we walk over to a bench at the top of the beach. For December, it is mild today, and there are a couple of other families walking dogs on Vøra Beach. We sit on polystyrene seat pads I’ve brought from home, and drink strong coffee from a thermos, watching Tobias throw a stick for Baby, whose hysterical barking hollers up and down the beach. Words don’t come easily in my father’s presence. It feels impossible that we haven’t spoken properly in so many years; now that he’s here again, it is as though he never left, as though we are just another father and daughter taking a small boy and his dog to the beach early one morning.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says my father suddenly, and he catches me off-guard, because it’s not like he is the one who needs to apologize here.

  ‘No,’ I say, focusing hard on keeping my voice calm and even. For days now I have felt like I’m likely to burst into tears at any unpredictable trigger. ‘Please. It is me who should apologize. You only did what you believed was right for Tobias. And maybe it was.’

  ‘I don’t mean in terms of Tobias. I’m sorry for what happened when you were a girl. That I left you.’ If I was feeling less vulnerable and less overwhelmed, perhaps I would have managed to stop the tears that begin to sting in my eyes. The winter sun is thankfully sharp and I pull my sunglasses down from where they’d sat on the top of my head, keeping my eyes on my son and his little white dog.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I whisper, but it isn’t, and we both know it. ‘I’m angry,’ I say.

  ‘I know,’ says my father. We stay silent a long while, watching the sun rise above the sea, trailing pink and red wispy clouds. ‘Do you think we can begin to repair our relationship, Cecilia? I’ve made some terrible mistakes. Maybe we could really talk in the next few days? I’d like that.’

  I force myself to turn my gaze from Tobias and the dog to my father, and nod.

  *

  I try to push this morning’s trip to the beach to the back of my mind as I pull up in front of a nondescript office on Rådhusgata. In this new life, it seems I’m always being shuttled around these various institutions – social services, the mental health unit at the hospital in Tønsberg, the police station and now this – Vestfold council’s rape counselor. ‘Ada Hagemo’ reads the sign on her office door, and I raise my hand to knock, but just then, it is opened.

  ‘Cecilia Wilborg?’ Ada Hagemo smiles widely and shakes my hand, as though I am here to discuss something rather more pleasant than my brutal rape on a beach in South America. She looks how one might imagine these therapy types to look – she wears a purple, organic-looking kaftan with half-moons stitched in silver thread around the bottom hem, and her dark-brown hair is streaked through with vivid smears of gray. Her skin is supple and glowing in that smug, wholesome way of gluten-free vegans, and her mild, brown eyes study me carefully from behind Harry Potter glasses. This woman seems to be the kind of person who’d discuss her aura in all seriousness.

  ‘Take a seat,’ she says, and ushers me into a subtly lit office overlooking the Scandic Hotel park. The lovely weather of this morning has given way to another onslaught of bitter, windy rain, and I watch a gust of wind shatter droplets against the window, like marbles flung to the ground. This makes me think of crystals like the ones favored by various therapy types and I discreetly glance around to see if I spot any, but I don’t. Ada Hagemo has a neat desk, on which stands a deep red poinsettia and a photograph of a smiling little girl sitting atop a handsome man’s shoulders. I let my eyes wander, determined to uncover at least one incriminating thing; something to prove that this woman can’t possibly be quite... all right.

  ‘I was thinking we could start off with taking a moment to talk about the things we’re grateful for in life. I often find that when dealing with very difficult subjects, it can be immensely helpful to start off a therapy session rooted in the present, and on a positive note. So. Cecilia. I’ve read your referral form, and it would seem that while you have faced some huge challenges, you also have a lot to be grateful for.’ Here she smiles encouragingly at me, and I slowly raise an eyebrow, focusing on keeping my face blank and unreadable.

  ‘Would you like to mention something in your life for which you are particularly grateful, Cecilia?’ I open my mouth to say something sarcastic, like: The fact that I have three Gucci Indiana bags when most people in this town only have one, but just then I see Johan’s face in my mind, the way he stood up for me in the meeting with Sylling and the police. I wanted to lightly touch his arm, make him calm down, but I could tell that he needed to do it. One mistake, he said, his voice level and strong, but I could tell how nervous he was by the scattered red rash along his neckline. Have you never made a single mistake in your life, Inspector Ellefsen? Not one?

  ‘Cecilia,’ says Ada Hagemo kindly. I close my mouth and open it again, but still, no words will come. Only tears. I stare hard out of the window but the falling rain just makes it worse; it reminds me of the night when Tobias appeared, when my life began to go to hell.

  ‘It’s okay, Cecilia,’ says Ada, handing me a tissue and squeezing my knee gently, but for a brief moment her hand becomes Anni’s dead, cold outstretched one. I swat her hand away, and stand up to run from this room, but I’m so tired of everything, maybe most of all myself. I also want to answer her question, but the problem isn’t that I can’t think of anything I’m grateful for – it’s rather that there are so many things. And I’ve treated all those things abysmally and neglectfully, caring much more about myself and my immediate satisfaction than the people around me. I’m embarrassed, frankly, but I’m sure as hell not going to admit that.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘You don’t have to say anything at all if you don’t want to. We’ll be meeting regularly for a long while, you and I. Not everyone finds it immediately natural to discuss intensely personal matters with a stranger.’ I nod and give Ada Hagemo a little smile. She has, after all, done nothing wrong.

  ‘I hate myself so much,’ I say after a long silence, and even this doesn’t seem to throw her.

  ‘Feelings of self-hate are very often prevalent in rape victims,’ she says softly, but I interrupt her.

  ‘It’s not because of the... rape. I hate myself because I’ve done so many shitty things. I’ve lied constantly to people I love. I’m a terrible mother.’

  ‘Everyone has done bad things, not just you. Sometimes we need to bring our focus to the future, and to forgiveness. You can’t change the past, no matter how much energy you spend wishing you could.’ I nod, and again, we sit in silence for a long time. I decide that I quite like Ada Hagemo, in spite of myself. I entertain a mental image of the two of us, meeting for a glass of wine, chatting away like old friends. Her kaftan is actually quite cool; it’s clearly handcrafted, and at least she’s someone who dares to dress the way she wants to, unlike my generic, clone-like group of yummy mummy friends. Ex-friends. I close my eyes, and more tears drop from them.

  ‘Do you have any questions about how these sessions will proceed? Or any other questions?’

  ‘Are you a vegan?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Sorry, I realize that is probably not a relevant question. I just... It just occurred to me.’

  Ada Hagemo smiles, then actually laughs a little. ‘No, I’m not a vegan, to answer your question,’ she says. ‘Look, why don’t you head home for today, and I’ll see you same place, same time next week.’

  *

  Sometimes, we just have to pull it together. After the session with Ada Hagemo, I just had to put certain things into perspective. I stood awhile in the rain by the car before unlocki
ng it, letting icy droplets take tiny stabs at my skin. I breathed deeply, clenching my teeth together. It’s true what I said to Ada Hagemo – I’ve jeopardized my family. I’ve shocked and hurt Johan. I’ve endangered and traumatized a small, innocent child. My child. A child who was treated better by a junkie kidnapper than his own mother. But in those moments I decided that if I am to hold on to this life and the people in it, I’ve got to forgive myself. It’s not too late, because I still have it all. One mistake. One wrong turn. I’ve only ever really made one mistake, albeit a very big one. I have to forgive myself for that and turn my gaze very firmly towards the future.

  I stop for fuel on the way home, making a conscious effort to look at the fuel pump rather than beyond it, to the boatyard where Anni’s life ended. A voice slices through the gurgling sound of the flowing petrol and the hammering rain.

  ‘Hi, Cecilia.’ It’s Fie, who’s nervously fiddling with the petrol cap on the Range Rover that just pulled up next to mine. I give her a tight smile and retract the nozzle from the fuel tank, though it’s less than half full. I’m not going to stand here being told again what an awful person and mother I am – I meant what I said about looking towards the future. I get in the car fast, and am about to turn the key in the ignition when Fie knocks on the window. I close my eyes and swallow hard, needing all the focus I can muster to keep the tears that wouldn’t stop flowing earlier from returning. Then I lower the window an inch and turn to face Fie. To my surprise, she has a faint smile on her lips and her eyes are soft.