by Alex Dahl
I smile and let my eyes discreetly travel around the room. Through the half-open door leading to what I presume is the only bedroom, I see a pile of clothes on the floor. I feel a profound pity for Kaia, and for Iselin, living in this cramped apartment, most likely originally built as basement storage for the house owners. It’s freezing, too, frost gathering along the window frames, the floor shockingly chilled. For a moment, I wish I could take them home with me, and let them live with me and Sindre in Ullveien. I imagine Kaia, playing quietly at Amalie’s desk, Iselin in the kitchen, unloading the dishwasher, chatting to Oliver. A dull ache spreads out in my stomach at this impossible fantasy and I stand up.
‘Are you okay, Alison?’ asks Iselin. I breathe in deeply, thinking of the peaceful moments in the stables with Misty’s chunky little body standing close to me, and feel instantly more centered. You are meant to be here. Here, in the world, but not here, in this house, with this little girl and her mother.
‘Yes,’ I whisper, and clear my throat. ‘Can I use your bathroom?’
I quickly grab my tranquilizers from my jacket pocket and then I sit on the closed toilet and swallow two dry. I focus on keeping my breathing deep and even. I try to separate the thoughts and emotions spinning through my head – just being around Kaia makes me feel like my insides are turning hot and liquid. If Sindre knew where I am in this moment, he would most likely have me sectioned. This must be what it’s like to go crazy. To think one thing, and knowing with every cell in your brain what is right and what isn’t, and then doing the complete opposite. Because your heart tells you to. But hearts can’t talk.
Yes, they can.
It is as if the words are spoken inside my head. I search for the image of my husband – thinking of Sindre always used to center me, but not anymore. I can’t entirely bring his face into focus in my mind. I feel a strange sensation, but my mind is too fuzzy with this whole situation to properly analyze what it means. Geneva. He’s in Geneva again. I don’t know where he is staying, or who he has gone there with. He told me, he always does, but I didn’t listen. There is no way for me to find out if he even told me the truth; maybe there is no conference, maybe he didn’t go there with one of the guys from Maxicurity, but with Mia, whoever she is. The way he once told Monica he was going one place, and then went another with me. And does it even matter? I find it so hard to feel anything at all.
My mind, it’s slipping. I can’t separate one thought from another. I can’t allow myself to lose hold of my thoughts, letting my mind charge off. It isn’t real, Ali. Your mind is running wild. I try to summon Karen’s face to mind, but it won’t come. I vaguely recall that she phoned earlier today, leaving another voice message. Ali, are you there? she’d said, as though she really cared, as though she wasn’t just paid to worry. If you can’t come to me, I will come to you. But what would Karen do if she could see me in this moment, popping pills and muttering to myself, sitting on the closed lid of a toilet in a tiny, cramped bathroom. She’d be afraid of me and what I might be capable of. I am, too. Because where can this go? What good could possibly come from this contact with Kaia? I should make an excuse to leave, then use my contact network to give Iselin a little boost, perhaps follow her from afar on Instagram. And yet, I feel so deeply that I need Kaia – it is as though she radiates solace, that she is a tiny island in this ferocious ocean of grief, that she is the only thing I can cling to.
I turn on the tap and scour my mind for a plan, some way to keep this fragile connection going. And then it comes to me. Risky, and perhaps immoral, but still, a plan. I need to stay close.
‘Hey Kaia,’ I say, sitting back down across from her, catching the child’s eye and fixing her with my gaze. Right now, inside her, Amalie’s heart dutifully powers this girl. My girl. ‘Have you ever skied?’
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Alison
It’s nearly five o’clock and pitch dark when I drive down to the bus station at the bottom of the hill. It has been snowing heavily all day, but now it’s let up, leaving a crisp and silent early evening. I marvel at a long streak of white stars in the sky; so much brighter here, away from the lights of the city. The snowplows have not yet reached this part of Norefjell, and my 4x4 struggles to get through the loose, thick snow in places. I pass Ole’s Kiosk, the boarded-up kebab shop, the Shell station, the children’s ski lift where Amalie learned to ski. It’s still running, slowly pulling little padded bodies up the hill on T-bars, huge floodlights casting their orange glow on the snow. I take my foot off the accelerator for a moment and watch them. It feels like the middle of the night and it’s strange to watch the tiny figures meandering expertly through the blue and red gates.
At the end of the road is a lay-by and the bus is just driving away from it as I pull up. On the curb, I can make out the shapes of two people waiting. Kaia is holding a red backpack in front of her, a tatty cat toy peering out from it. She is staring down at the ground, making shapes in the fresh snow with her boot. She’s wearing the same purple puffa jacket and hat she wore the first time I ever saw her, at her school. My mind goes to the awful moments after she was flung from the sledge, when all I wanted was to rush to her and calm her racing heart, but couldn’t. I swallow hard and smile widely as Kaia looks up from the ground, my car’s headlights sweeping across her face as I come to a stop. Iselin smiles nervously.
‘Oh, hi,’ she says as I step out of the car, engine still running, spewing frosty bursts of exhaust into the air. ‘Thank you so much for coming to get us.’
‘Of course. No problem,’ I say, hugging her briefly, then Kaia, who offers herself to me to be hugged, but doesn’t close her arms around me. ‘Were you guys okay getting here on the bus?’
‘Yeah, it wasn’t far at all, really.’
‘That’s one of the reasons we chose Norefjell,’ I say, driving slowly back down the quiet main street. ‘It’s so close to Oslo and we really didn’t want to spend hours in the car every time we wanted to go to the cabin, you know?’ Iselin nods, and I glance at Kaia in the rearview mirror, her blue eyes shining, taking in the exciting new place and the sight of the children rushing down the gentle slope.
‘How long have you had your cabin?’ Iselin asks. I like how she always attempts to fill a silence. I’m just not able to do it anymore, but I appreciate it in others.
‘I guess it’s five years now. The kids, uh, Oliver was about nine when we bought it.’ I don’t think Iselin noticed my slip. Amalie was a baby the first time we came here. I spent two weeks over Christmas and New Year on the big blue sofa by the fire, just gazing at her soft baby face, learning her features, responding to her every need, holding her tiny hand as she slept. Iselin says something, but my mind feels thick and disoriented again.
‘What?’ I say, turning to her, smiling carefully.
‘It’s green,’ she says, softly, and it takes me a moment to realize that she means the traffic light at the intersection. I nod, flick the indicator and turn left, the wheels spinning several rounds before gaining traction.
‘So, your son is – what? – fourteen, did you say?’
‘Stepson,’ I say, keeping my voice neutral. ‘Yeah. Oliver recently turned fourteen. He’s a great kid. At that age now, when, you know…’ I trail off, my attention diverted again by the myriad bright stars above the snow-laden spruce trees on the last stretch of track before our cabin. I need to get it together or Iselin will think I’m completely unhinged. ‘Yeah. So, he’s at that age when it’s all about his friends. He lives with me and my husband every other week, which is great, but he’s generally either out with mates or shut up in his room playing video games.’
‘Yeah,’ says Iselin, smiling kindly at me, then turning to look outside as I pull up in front of our little cabin, Blåkroken – the ‘blue nook’. We called it that because of its beautifully carved indigo shutters. The cabin is only vaguely visible from the track, but I’ve left the lights on and the soft glow from the windows can be seen through the tall trees by t
he parking spot. It’s not unusual to get snowed in up here, and when I think back to our first couple of winters, which were much colder than the last few, I remember often waking up in a dull gray light, snow covering most of the windows. Sindre and Oliver would dig us out, their faces red and giddy with excitement while Amalie and I played on the rug in front of the fire, the room slowly brightening as the boys cleared the snow. In my mind’s eye her sweet baby face shimmering in the flickering light of the fire is as clear as if she were sitting in front of me now, little busy hands moving toys around, mouth pursed in concentration, fine blonde infant hair sticking up at the back of her head, still staticky from the pillow.
‘Wow,’ says a voice, loudly piercing my thoughts. ‘It’s so cute!’ Kaia is trudging toward the cabin through deep snow; she doesn’t use the path through the trees I cleared with a shovel before coming to pick them up.
‘Over there, Kaia,’ I say, but my voice comes out barely a whisper, and it’s too late anyway; Kaia is wading through snow up to her thighs, giggling loudly, and looking at her, I have to laugh, too. As we step into the warm cottage, the three of us are chattering and laughing like old friends and I feel briefly, powerfully, alive again.
‘Your room is the second on the left,’ I say, and Kaia dashes off down the narrow hallway to explore, clapping her hands. I take Iselin’s jacket and hang it in the wardrobe and we smile at each other at the sound of Kaia’s excited voice from the bedroom I’ve put her in.
Blåkroken has three bedrooms: one for the kids, one for guests, and one for Sindre and myself. Kaia is in the kids’ room, though I debated whether I could bear it. It’s a narrow room with triple bunk beds built into the wall. Oliver always sleeps at the top, directly underneath the ceiling; I imagine Kaia might, too. During the day, Amalie liked to play up there, drawing the bunk’s checked blue-and-white curtains shut, cocooned in the cozy space, a world all her own, chatting away to her dolls. I force my mind away.
‘You’re in here,’ I say to Iselin, showing her the guest room with its rounded timber walls and deep sleigh bed. At the foot of the bed is the skin of a brown bear, shot by Sindre’s father in Trysil.
‘It’s lovely,’ she says, walking over to the window which overlooks the valley. It is a lovely room, the nicest of the cabin’s bedrooms – Sindre and I wanted the guest room completed first, but then never really got around to putting the finishing touches to our own bedroom.
‘I’ll let you get settled in,’ I say.
In the kitchen, I open a bottle of Barolo I find on the wine rack. I think it’s one of Sindre’s expensive ones, and that suits me fine – I want Iselin to feel spoiled. And I want to impress her. I swirl it around in my glass, drawing in its peppery richness and intense black-cherry hue. When I look up I suddenly notice that Kaia is sitting on the long wooden bench that runs alongside the kitchen windows, a pen held suspended over a blank sheet of paper, staring at me.
‘Oh, hi, Kaia,’ I say, my heart hammering. ‘You startled me.’ She says nothing, just keeps looking at me, and her cool blue gaze makes me irrationally nervous. ‘Hey, so, do you like board games?’ Kaia stares at me blankly.
‘Where’s your girl?’ she asks. I freeze, my hand tightening around the fragile wine glass. I remember what happened the last time – my hand still aches from it – and put the glass down on the counter before turning away from her. My heart is lurching in my chest, my nails digging into my palms. I pretend to look for something in the cupboard above the sink, taking several deep breaths before turning back around.
‘I have a boy, Kaia. Oliver. My stepson.’ My voice is barely a whisper.
‘You don’t have a girl?’
‘No,’ I say, my heart aching. My eyes drop to the blood-red wine in the glass. I pick it up again and take a long glug, closing my eyes against the tears I can feel rising.
‘But… But whose is that?’ I follow Kaia’s pointed finger to the top shelf next to the fireplace in the adjoining living room. One of Amalie’s Barbies sits in between two empty vases. I thought I’d removed every trace of her before Iselin and Kaia’s arrival: two boxes of toys and clothes shoved into the attic space, her short wooden bed which stood at the bottom of Sindre’s and my bed – dismantled and placed on top of the boxes. I lay on our bed, afterward, staring at the swirls in the wood of the ceiling until the sky faded to a light purple.
‘Oh, that,’ I say, forcing a shrill, merry laugh, dashing across the room for it. I remember this particular one; it’s the one whose hair Amalie hacked off with nail scissors in the bathtub; I raised my voice at her because of it. I remember her wet, sad face, the plastic Barbie hair floating on the soapy water around her. I’ll never buy you another toy if you’re going to destroy them, I’d said, angrily hauling her from the tub by a thin, slippery arm. I run my finger across the doll’s blunt bob now, regret so fierce it takes my breath away.
‘Can I play with it?’ asks Kaia. I turn toward her again, and perhaps she notices something in my expression because her eyes drop to the piece of paper on the table in front of her and she begins to draw a long, shaky line. I open my mouth to say, No. No, Kaia, you can’t play with it, it isn’t yours to play with. It’s Amalie’s. Just like the heart beating inside you. It’s Amalie’s. It doesn’t belong to you and it never will. No words emerge, and then Iselin walks into the room, face open and unprepared for the tense atmosphere. I don’t want her to sense it. I have to keep her from finding out who I am, or this all makes me look completely insane.
‘Here,’ I say and place the Barbie on the table in front of Kaia, smiling at her. ‘A friend’s daughter forgot this here. Perhaps you’d like to play with it?’ Kaia stares at the doll, at her tatty yellow dress, her outstretched arms, her empty, plastic smile, the crudely chopped hair.
‘That’s okay,’ she says, returning her gaze to her drawing, which by now has taken on the shape of this cabin, surrounded by towering trees and a moon with a smiley face. ‘I don’t like Barbie.’
‘Kaia,’ says Iselin, ‘don’t be rude. Since when do you not like Barbie?’ Iselin gives me a slight eye roll and the well-known exasperated-mother expression and I smile as warmly as I can manage.
‘It’s okay,’ I say, picking the doll back up from the table. I place it in a kitchen drawer and pour Iselin a large glass of wine, which she takes eagerly. ‘How about a game of Yatzy?’
*
It’s almost nine o’clock by the time Kaia goes off to bed, after several rounds of Yatzy and homemade knekkebrød crackers with brown cheese. She enjoyed the board games, her little face lit up, tiny body animated and buzzing with excitement, my heart swelling with a growing affection for this little stranger, along with something else, too; something darker.
Iselin is in the room with her for quite a while, and I can hear their murmuring voices and occasional muffled laughter from where I’m sitting by the fire. I finally managed to get it going after trying for half an hour; it occurred to me how I’ve never come here without Sindre before. My mind is pleasantly foggy with the wine and I stare into the curling, snapping flames. My phone vibrates in my pocket, first once, then immediately again. I fish it out and glance at the neon screen, so out of place in this haven of roaring fires, ancient woods and deep snow.
Landed, reads the first message from Sindre. And then – I’ve missed you. Home in 45. Sx
I try to think, but my mind feels slippery and murky. It’s Thursday. He said in his last message that he needed to extend his stay in Geneva. Didn’t he? I wonder what he will make of Iselin’s drawings – I got them framed the day before I left and hung them in the living room. I’d thought I would get the chance to gently prepare him for the sight, but now he will get there before I do. Although, knowing my husband, he might not even realize they weren’t there before. I decide to say nothing.
Hi honey, I write back. Thought you were gone another couple of days – I’ve gone up to Blåkroken. Lots of snow, back on Saturday.
A moment later, my p
hone buzzes again.
Alone?
Yes, I write.
Is everything okay?
Better than in a long while, I reply. Don’t worry. A x
‘God, she can be so hard to put to bed sometimes,’ Iselin says, slumping into the sofa next to me just as I press Send, reaching for her newly refilled wine glass.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. She used to be so easy with bedtime. Probably because she was on so much medication. Anyway. All good now.’
‘Is she asleep?’
‘Not quite, but she’ll be out cold in a minute. She just loves it here.’
‘Aw, good. It is a great place for kids. She’ll love it in the morning; she can jump off the roof and into the snowdrifts.’
‘Oh, wow. Yeah, she’ll love that. It’s crazy… Just a year ago, she would never have been able to do stuff like that, you know? She was literally slumped on the couch in front of the TV, or napping, most of the time. I prayed so hard that she would make it, that somehow she would be one of the lucky ones, and of course I’m over the moon that everything has gone so well. But it’s like I can’t quite get my head around it sometimes. Someone will suggest something Kaia could or should do, and I open my mouth to say the words I’ve said so many times – “Unfortunately Kaia can’t”. But now she can.’
‘It must have been so hard, waiting.’
‘It was. It was just… inhumane… It felt more like we were waiting for death than for life, most of the time. Life just didn’t seem like a realistic option.’
‘Just waiting for someone to die,’ I say, focusing hard on an unwavering, neutral voice.
‘Exactly.’ We fall silent for a while, Iselin looking out the window next to the fireplace, framing a waning moon high in the inky sky.
‘I prayed that someone would die,’ Iselin says. ‘It sounds so awful. But it’s true. I’d never wish for anyone else’s child to be taken away, but that’s how desperate you become in that situation.’