by Alex Dahl
‘Oh fuck,’ she’d said. ‘How soon can you, you know, get it out?’
*
We’ve asked for the check and are down to our last couple of sips of Bloody Mary number two when Noa interrupts something I’d been saying about the contract I’ve just signed with Speilet. Judging by the serious tone of her voice, she has been waiting for the right moment to broach this subject with me.
‘So, Is. Let me just get this totally straight. Alison recommended you to this Frans guy, who then interviewed you and offered you the job?’
‘Yeah. He’s the editor in chief.’
‘Okay. And Alison recommended you to her own actual workplace based on the couple of illustrations you’ve done for her?’
‘Yeah. Well, I mean she’s seen most of my stuff, I think. She first found me on Instagram, and pretty much everything is on there.’
‘Let me see her.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Let’s see her Instagram profile.’
‘Oh. Yeah, okay.’ I sent Alison a follow request when we were in Norefjell but it occurs to me now that I can’t remember seeing a notification that she’d accepted. I scroll through the people I follow and see that my follow request to @millerjuulfam is still pending. Noa motions for me to hand her the phone.
‘She doesn’t really use Instagram,’ I say.
‘You just said she found you there first?’
‘Yeah, but she doesn’t, like, use it generally.’
‘She’s posted 488 times and has 264 followers, though.’
‘Yeah. Okay, well, I don’t get the impression she checks it often.’
‘Facebook?’
‘I looked her up on Facebook but she’s kind of just a bit old for the social media stuff. You know what people over forty are like,’ I say. ‘They just don’t get it.’
‘Hm,’ says Noa.
‘Anyway.’ I’m finding it increasingly annoying that Noa seems to constantly want to catch Alison out at some weirdness. She must be jealous, after all – I’ve never really been that close to anyone but Noa.
‘So, what’s her husband like?’
I pause. I really don’t want to get into Alison’s personal life with Noa. ‘Sindre? Oh. Solid. Maybe kind of typical Norwegian, you know, more comfortable in the woods than he is in a restaurant.’ I chuckle a little, trying to lighten the mood, but Noa’s eyes are narrowed.
‘What’s he like with Kaia?’
‘Umm. I don’t… She hasn’t met him, actually.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah, you see, he travels a lot. He was in Geneva, and then Reykjavik and, like, Frankfurt or something, all in a few weeks. And Copenhagen. He runs his own company, doing some kind of home security systems.’
‘Wait. Issy, hold on. Are you saying Kaia’s staying at these people’s house and she’s never even met the guy?’
‘He’s not there this weekend. He’s—’
‘Traveling.’
‘Uh, yeah.’
‘At the weekend? For work? Seems odd, no?’
‘Okay, maybe it wasn’t for work. Alison told me where he was going. Could be hunting or something.’ I’m not going to tell Noa that he has left Alison for another woman, but for the first time, I feel uneasy about how completely Alison’s home life has unraveled in the last few weeks and that I’ve placed Kaia right in the middle of it. What if the husband comes back to the house, furious, and threatens Alison? I already know he can be violent. Kaia could get caught up in something dangerous.
‘Right. But, when you met him, you thought he seemed, you know, nice and normal?’ Fear, sharp and unexpected, simmers in my stomach with the Bloody Mary. I stare at the chunky rings on my left hand, turning one round and round, exposing a band of green, stained flesh underneath. Do I tell my sister the truth, or do I chance a soft lie?
‘I… I haven’t actually met him either.’
‘What? Are you serious?’ I nod. ‘Issy, you realize that is super fucking weird, right?’
‘Noa, listen. I’ve spent a lot of time with Alison. She’s absolutely lovely, and—’
‘You’ve told me before that she’s weird.’
‘No, not weird.’
‘You did. When you went round to her house and she sliced herself with a glass or whatever? You said there was something strange and sad about her.’
‘Yes, okay. She is a little… mysterious. I think she’s lonely. She’s taking time out from her job and I don’t think she has a lot of friends in Norway. It’s not easy to make friends especially if you don’t have kids. I mean, where would you even meet people—’
‘Why is she taking time out?’
‘She’s writing. A book.’
‘Right.’
‘Seriously, Noa, what is up with you? You can meet her next time you’re in Norway and you’ll see for yourself that she’s really lovely. Totally normal. It’s not like I would let her babysit Kaia if she wasn’t.’
‘My point is, Iselin, why do you think that this woman, who is – what? – twenty years your senior and has had this extremely successful international career, but is now suddenly and strangely unemployed, is interested in hanging out with a young, exhausted single mother whose drawings she bought? It’s weird! She wants something from you.’
‘Why is it always the same with you?’ I can’t help but raise my voice at Noa, making the foursome at the table close to us fall momentarily silent. ‘It’s like you just can’t accept that I, too, have a life! It’s not all Poor Iselin this, poor Iselin that! I’m my own person and I make my own decisions and trust me, I am capable of making friends who are there for me without some secret fucking agenda!’
‘What’s her husband’s name?’ Noa is punching something into my phone, then scrolling down, fast. I breathe exaggeratedly; Noa has typically gone off on one of her unstoppable quests.
‘Sindre Juul, I think.’ Noa taps again and again, and then her finger hovers over something I can’t see from here. It’s as though she’s about to throw up, and I guess this could be the case because we have been drinking non-stop for two days, not to mention the coke, but her face is crumpling into a strange grimace of horror and shock and she hands me the phone in silence. I stare at Noa, not at the screen; I know already that I won’t want to see what she has found.
‘Jesus Christ,’ she whispers as I force my eyes to the little blue square and begin to read.
I’ve seen photographs of Sindre before – Alison showed me a couple on her phone in Norefjell. ‘Veteran Skarve-enthusiast’ reads the caption, and in this one I see that he is a very handsome man, with soft brown eyes, and messy blond hair. In the other photos, his head is clean-shaven, giving him a much harder look. I scroll again, to the next picture of Sindre, and it’s this one that makes my heart drop in my chest.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Alison
For breakfast, I make Amalie’s favorite; thick American buttermilk pancakes with maple syrup and fresh strawberries. Oliver and I watch Kaia, transfixed, and at one point she realizes and blushes selfconsciously, perhaps thinking we were being critical of her. She pulls at my heartstrings with her trusting, big eyes and I have to look away.
‘Hey Kaia,’ I say when she’s finished. ‘I have another surprise for you.’
‘What!’ she shouts and claps her hands – she’s getting used to one nice surprise after another around here.
‘We’re going to go see the little horse now. Misty.’
‘Yes! Misty! Misty!’ Tiny hands clapping, little face glowing. Oliver looks from his phone to me. He is different from last night – these adolescents have the most bizarre mood swings. He’s been terse and shifty all morning, hardly glancing up from his phone.
‘Do you want to come with us, Oliver?’
‘Nuh,’ he grunts. ‘I might, uh, see Celine later. She wants to go to the mall.’
‘Alison?’ says Kaia, face suddenly serious. I smile at her, stroking her hair off her face.
‘Mam
ma won’t let me go to the horse,’ she says. ‘She says it’s because of one of my medicines…’
‘Your mom won’t find out,’ I say, smiling, and Kaia considers this for a brief moment, before excitedly nodding, naughtiness sparking in her eyes.
‘We won’t tell her!’
‘No. We won’t.’
‘Put some warm clothes on and we’ll go. I’ve laid some out for you on the bed.’ Kaia runs off to get dressed. I rinse my coffee mug in the sink and when I turn back around, Oliver is glaring at me.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
He forces a little smile, shakes his head slightly and gets up. He slips his phone into his pocket and hovers a moment.
‘Nothing,’ he says in the end, and walks away.
*
Misty knows it’s you straight away, I can tell. All these months, when I’ve come here, she’s just stood there, scratching at the ground, looking past me, looking for you, but now she twitches her ears merrily and pushes her muzzle into your open hands. You look up at me and your eyes are full of love and wonder. You understand, now, like I knew that you would. Misty is yours and you are mine.
Misty snorts several times and rubs her forehead with its round white patch against your chest, where your heart sits. She knows it, and she knows you, and this was what I needed – to be sure. It’s time, baby bear.
Chapter Sixty
Iselin
He’s standing with his skis still on, having clearly just passed the finish line, a gently rounded, snow-covered mountain behind him. A young boy stands behind him, laughing, squinting in the sun, a patch of angry acne on his cheeks. And to his right stands Alison, beaming, wearing a pink ski jacket and silver Moon Boots. On her arm perches a small child, perhaps around four years old – a girl, judging from her pink hat and Queen Elsa snowsuit. There’s something about the confident, relaxed way that Alison holds the child that leaves me in no doubt that she’s her mother.
‘Oh my God,’ I say. My heart’s racing and I can feel a rash burning up the side of my neck.
‘Yeah,’ says Noa, looking around again for the waiter. ‘We need to go.’
‘Okay… Wait. We don’t know anything! This could all be completely innocent!’
‘Why would Alison lie about having a kid?’
‘Just wait a second.’ My thoughts dash back to yesterday morning as I got in the taxi, to Alison’s relaxed, possessive hand on Kaia’s shoulder as they waved me off in the window. What could this mean? I need to know. Perhaps it means nothing at all, maybe the little girl is Alison’s niece or something.
Quickly, my fingers trembling and stumbling over the search pad I google ‘Alison Miller-Juul’. Google asks, Did you mean Alison Miller-Hughes? There are links to articles in publications from the New Yorker, to Dagbladet, to Paris Weekly and the Guardian. Her impressive career is certainly no lie. I type in ‘Alison Miller-Juul mother’ and toward the top of the search results is an article in KK Magazine from 2014. What Motherhood in Norway Taught Me about American Values, reads the title. I click on it.
When my daughter Amalie was born in 2013, I realized that American women are short-changed when it comes to motherhood. We are taught that it is natural to work up until the day we give birth, and again pretty much straight after, leaving our baby in the care of strangers. In Norway…
My heart is beating so fast I actually place my hand above my left breast, trying to restore its usual rhythm. Fifteen in, twenty out. Come on, Iselin, use your brain. I try to employ my old technique of isolating one aspect of a problem and analyzing it before moving on to the next. Alison has lied to me about having had a child. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything. She doesn’t owe me full disclosure about her past or her family life. Something must have happened to her daughter, something terrible – it would explain the sensation I’ve sometimes had, of something painful lingering beneath Alison’s surface.
‘Read this,’ I say, handing her the phone.
We swap phones and I type ‘Amalie Juul’ into Google on Noa’s phone, but it asks, Did you mean Amalie Iuel, the world championship hurdler, and all the images that appear are of the athlete. I try ‘Amalie Miller-Juul’ and there are several hundred hits. Dagbladet, VG, Bergens Tidene, Drammensposten, Morgenbladet, Aftenposten: all of Norway’s mainstream press. I breathe deeply and click randomly on the third article, from Aftenposten on July 20th, last year.
No formal inquiry will be launched into the death of five-year-old Amalie Miller-Juul, who drowned in Bogstadvannet on July 6th, confirms Egil Minnevold of Majorstuen police station.
I click on the first one, this one from VG on July 9th.
The little girl who tragically drowned in front of hundreds of families on the hottest day of the year earlier this week, has been formally identified as Amalie Miller-Juul (5), of Frognerseteren.
There is a photograph of Amalie; a typical nursery school headshot of a smiling child. She has a sweet, slightly narrow face, with dark almond-shaped eyes like Alison’s, and thick, dark-blonde hair fastened back from her face with red bows. I can’t think straight. I stand up. I touch my heart again, and it’s scrambling like a trapped bird in my chest. Noa says something, but I’m already running, and on the street, heaving with the cool Parisians of Saint-Sulpice, I can’t help but unleash a wild cry. Noa puts her arm around me and we begin to run, toward rue du Four, where Noa flags down a taxi. ‘Orly,’ she says.
In the quiet car, maneuvering through the streets of the 6th slowly, my sister and I stare at each other.
‘It’s her, isn’t it?’
‘What do you mean?’ whispers Noa, eyes wide and afraid, her face soft and sweet without all the make-up.
‘Alison is the mother of Kaia’s donor.’
‘What?’
‘I just know it. July 6th, Noa.’
‘Oh, my God,’ whispers my sister. ‘Try her again, Is.’ I do, but Alison’s phone goes straight to voicemail. I look at my WhatsApp, and it says Alison was last online at 01.34 this morning. Was she tending to Kaia? Has something happened? I know that Alison would never hurt Kaia. She wouldn’t hurt her. She couldn’t. But what does she want? I think about when she crushed the wine glass in her hand, how anguished and wild her expression was, as if the pain she must have felt was a release. She wouldn’t hurt Kaia. Would she?
‘I’m trying to find Sindre’s phone number,’ says Noa. ‘And then I’m going to call Norwegian Air. There is a flight at four; I think we’ll make it. Issy, I think you should call the police!’
‘The police?’
‘Yes! Yes, of course. Call them now.’
But just then, my phone rings.
‘Hello?’
‘Is this Iselin Berge?’ A stranger’s voice, calm and unhurried.
‘Yes! Who is this?’
‘This is Silje Mathisen from Bærum Barnevernstjeneste, children’s services.’
Chapter Sixty-One
Alison
As I drive away from the stables, my phone begins to ring, but it’s in my bag in the boot, so I can’t reach it. It stops, but then immediately starts up again. And again. I look in the rearview and Kaia is holding the purple bear, mumbling sweetly to herself. Her eyes are still glowing with the excitement of meeting Misty. She notices me staring at her and looks up at me. Perhaps my gaze is too intense because she looks taken aback. She hesitates before she speaks, as though she has learned to be afraid. That mother must have taught her that, poor baby.
‘When is Mamma coming?’ I don’t answer her – I’m distracted by the phone ringing, again and again. As soon as it goes to answerphone, it starts up again. Kaia is noticing too, craning her head around to locate the sound. ‘Is that Mamma calling?’
I ignore her. ‘Hey Kaia, do you know what I was thinking?’ Slow head-shake. ‘Tell me, how much did you love Misty?’ She considers this, eyes lighting up.
‘A lot.’
‘What if… What if Misty was your horse?’
‘I wish she was my hor
se,’ says Kaia, eyebrows drawing together in a frown, ‘but…’
‘But what?’
‘Mamma would never let me.’
‘That seems a bit mean, don’t you think? Surely she’d let you have a sweet little pony?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘I’ll speak to her about it if you want. I’d like to give Misty to you. You deserve a beautiful pony of your own, Kaia.’
‘But… But, Misty is Oliver’s pony.’
‘Yes, that’s right. But he’s getting too big for her now. You saw how tall he is, he’s a big boy, and Misty is a very little horse. She’s perfect for you. Anyway, it was Oliver’s idea.’
‘It was?’
‘Yeah. You know, Oliver likes you so much. He wishes he had a little sister just like you.’
‘Oh.’
‘Do you ever dream about living in a big house and having your own horse and that kind of thing?’
Kaia says nothing, but seems to consider this, looking at Oslo spreading out below as we drive up Holmenkollveien, past the ski jump. ‘I want my mamma,’ she says, making my gut clench in anger. I grip the wheel so hard my knuckles turn a white-blue, like ice. We are approaching the bottom of the hill that leads to the house, and still, the phone hasn’t stopped ringing. I am getting stressed about it – who could be wanting to call me over and over? Sindre? I try to picture my husband and find that I can’t – he’s become hazy and shadowed in my mind. Why would Sindre call me repeatedly? On impulse, I pull over by a bus stop and, leaving the engine running, get my handbag out of the boot. Even now the phone is vibrating and chiming as I wrench it free from a side pocket.