The Missing. Part 14

Even though I've been awake for several minutes, it's only when I hear her question that I take stock. My head is no longer pounding fiercely. The headache is still there, but not as sharp. My shoulder still feels stiff and swollen, but the fever must have subsided. The nap seems to have done me good. How long did I sleep? A familiar, and yet peculiar, feeling starts up in my stomach.

"Hungry," I say. "I'm hungry."

I go out to the kitchen, walking with my mother's arm around me for support, and there I eat several pieces of toast. I wonder what happened to the ax. I wonder what Mama has done with it, but I don't ask. Smilla's baby doll is lying facedown on the floor under the table. Her polka-dot dress has slid up so that the doll's s.h.i.+ny plastic bottom peeks out. Slowly but deliberately, I reach for the doll, straighten her clothes, and set her on the chair next to me.

The effort prompts my bad shoulder to throb with pain. The lower part of my face and my neck hurt. I'm still exhausted, both from the fever and from the havoc of the past few days. Anxiously, I run my fingertips over the skin around my navel. Are you still in there? Deep inside, I feel something flutter. Something that's fighting. Something that wants to live. Something or someone. It's going to be fine. It has to be.

With my newly awakened appet.i.te, I set about filling the gaping hole in my stomach while my mother rummages around in the bedroom and bathroom, packing up all my things. She works efficiently, in silence, moving with confidence, as if she's never done anything other than rescue me from absurd situations. I'm guessing that her plan is to finish up as soon as possible and then drive me to the hospital. I wonder what she's going to tell the doctors. It's probably best not to ask, best for me to keep quiet and let Mama do the talking.

The psychologist stays out of our way, but I know she hasn't left the cabin. Her presence is palpable. I a.s.sume she's still in the living room. Pondering her next step, pondering her life? What do I know? The only thing I know is that if Mama trusts her, then I trust her too.

I've finally eaten my fill. Mama has wiped off the kitchen counter and carried out my suitcase.

"The car is parked outside," she says, motioning toward the front door.

Then she helps me up, and we start walking, her arm around my waist, my arm around her neck. Our bodies pressed together from shoulder to hip. We haven't stood this close in a long time.

We're already out on the front steps when I hear a sound from the hall. Mama turns her head, her eyes fixed on something right behind us.

"I have one last question. Was it worth it?"

Mama hesitates. She looks from the psychologist to me, her gaze lingering on me for a moment. I don't turn around. I don't meet my mother's eye. I'm waiting.

"No," says Mama. "It wasn't."

She steers me toward her car and helps me into the pa.s.senger seat. Through the window, I see my own car. I half listen as Mama tells me she's going to have it towed from here as soon as possible. She'll figure it out. I shouldn't worry. I won't need to come back here. Ever. She'll see to that.

She walks around the car and gets into the driver's seat, closing the door and fastening her seatbelt. Then she sits there without turning the key. She doesn't move. She doesn't say anything.

"Mama?"

For a long time, she stares straight ahead.

"That man . . . Alex," she finally says. "The way he treats her . . . Does he treat you like that too?"

What should I say? Should I tell her about the silk tie? Mama is chewing her lip. I try to sound rea.s.suring, convincing.

"I left him. I told him never to come near me again."

She thinks about this for a moment.

"What about the child?" she says then. "Your child. What are you planning to do?"

I wait, forcing her to turn toward me and read the answer in my eyes. Slowly, she nods. She reaches out her hand and cups my unbruised cheek.

"If he ever contacts you-you or the baby-if he in any way . . ."

Sooner or later, Alex is going to find out that I got away, that his wife let me go. How will he react? I don't want to even try imagining that. But no matter how strong his reaction, he'll probably think twice before contacting me again. There are certain advantages to being a mystery. There are certain advantages to not telling Alex the whole truth about Papa.

I think about what he said to me at the end of our latest-our last-phone conversation. And about what I let him believe. That I was the one who delivered the fatal shove on that night an eternity ago. What I'm capable of.

I raise my hand to place it over my mother's hand on my cheek. I hope she'll know what I'm trying to say. I hope she can feel the strength of who I am. My mother's daughter.

"If he does, I'll deal with it."

Mama listens, lets the words sink in. Then she removes her hand and smiles. That smile tells me that everything is as it should be.

"Wait here a minute," she says. "I forgot something inside."

She unbuckles her seatbelt and resolutely walks around the hedge that encloses the cabin we're about to leave.

I lean back and take several deep breaths. Leaving this place. At last. I think about how good it will be to go home. I decide to look for a new apartment as soon as possible. Somewhere he's never been. Maybe I'll even move to a different town. But the very first thing I'm going to do, as soon as I've gotten patched up and I'm feeling better, is call Katinka. And ask her if she'd like to meet for coffee.

At that moment, I see her. She's approaching hesitantly from the other side of the road. Black, shapeless clothes, her long hair hanging loose. I open the car door, and she comes over, stopping a few feet away. She stares at me mutely, her eyes s.h.i.+fting from the cuts on my face to the big bruise.

"My mom talked to the police," she says at last. "They said something about a woman with an ax. I wanted . . . I just wanted to see if you were okay."

"I'm okay. What about you?"

She brushes her hair out of her face and stares down at the ground. A worried mother whose daughter was purportedly threatened with a knife by her boyfriend. That's what the police officer had said.

"Your mother reported him?"

The girl named Greta looks at the ground, at the road, everywhere but at me.

"So f.u.c.king stupid," she finally mutters. "She has no idea what she's talking about."

I have a sinking feeling in my chest. So she's taking Jorma's side? Even though he tried to attack her? I want to shake her, protest, ask her if she heard anything I said when we met in the forest clearing. But then I glimpse my mother coming around the hedge. When she catches sight of Greta, she walks faster. Quickly, I reach out my hand and hear the words of the policewoman echoing from my own lips.

"There's help available."

The girl looks at my hand held out toward her. For a moment, she doesn't move. Then she raises her own hand and her fingers brush mine. They're ice cold.

"h.e.l.lo there. Who are you? And what are you doing here?"

Mama's voice is loud and commanding. The girl yanks her hand away. She looks into my eyes one last time. My voice is barely more than a whisper.

"Take care of yourself, okay?"

Without another word, she runs off. I feel my own hand fall away. Mama opens the car door, gets in, and fastens her seatbelt. When she asks me about the girl, I shrug. She doesn't persist.

"Sweetheart," she says instead, "there's something I was thinking about."

I close the car door and look in the mirror. I see a small, thin figure disappearing. Soon, she's no more than a line in the distance. Then she's swallowed up by the earth. By Marhem. Mama turns the key, and the engine starts up.

"I hope you know that I'd do anything for you. Anything at all, Greta."

I nod. I do know.

"You're going to need a lot of help. It's no easy thing to be pregnant. And later, after the baby arrives, it won't exactly get easier. As a single mother, you'll need all the support you can get. I want you to know that I . . ."

She comes to a halt. I fumble for her hand resting on the gears.h.i.+ft.

"Mama. Thank you."

She turns to look at me and smiles. That special smile of hers.

Then we drive off.

43.

I didn't manage to strike a good blow with the oar. The angle was wrong, the force of the blow too weak. You pa.s.sed out, but that was mostly due to the already-pitiful condition you were in. Maybe I should have used the ax while you were lying on the floor. Before she arrived. The person who turned everything upside down. Your mother.

I recognized you as soon as you opened the door, knew that you were a former client, but it took a while before I was able to place you. Then I remembered the strange story about your father falling out the window. The story that never had a proper ending. I was so sure, back then when you sat across from me and talked around the issue. I was sure that you were the one who pushed him. Everything about you-your body language, your tone, your facial expressions-indicated as much. So when you wanted to end our meetings without fully unburdening your heart, I tried to stop you. Do you remember that? You probably don't. My words can't have meant much to you. You left my office and never came back. And I moved on too. I haven't given you a thought since that day. Not until now.

I stand in the kitchen and look out the window. Even though I can't see you, I know you're still out there. A moment ago, I heard a car door slam. In a few seconds, the engine will start up, and I'll stand here listening as you and your mother disappear. Will I have any regrets then? Will I regret that I let you go, that I didn't use my bare hands to yank out of you what is growing inside?

It's for your mother's sake that I'm letting you go. After she shared her story with me, I can't lift a hand to her daughter. I thought I'd already been through the worst, but now I have a feeling something even bigger is just around the corner. Something both frightening and powerful. The biggest challenge of my life. Something that will set me free.

I see her running back toward the cabin, hear her feet pounding up the steps, and then the front door opens. You must have forgotten something. I go out to the hall to meet her. She doesn't take off her shoes, doesn't make any move to come inside. She just stands there, staring at me.

"Greta won't have anything more to do with your husband," she says at last. "You have my word."

I know she wouldn't say that if it wasn't true. I've seen with my own eyes the power she has over you. You may not see it yourself. Maybe you don't want to admit it, but that's how it is. I nod to show that I accept her message. I expect her to turn and leave. But she stays where she is, standing on the hall rug.

"You asked me if it was worth it. Ask me again."

At first, I'm confused. She already answered my question. Then I understand. You're not here listening this time. I feel my pulse quicken.

"Was it worth it?"

"I've finally asked Greta to forgive me for leaving her alone. It's been weighing on me all these years. But what I did, the fact that I killed her father, that's not something I've asked her to forgive. And I'm never going to insult her or myself by doing that. A genuine plea for forgiveness presupposes remorse."

Her words swirl through the air between us. She locks her eyes on mine, boring into me.

"Is that answer clear enough for you?"

My skin tingles and aches. It feels like every blood vessel in my body is open. I nod. Her words have made something come alive. The big challenge in front of me, awaiting me. I've been brooding about it all afternoon, ever since she finished telling her story. Ever since I heard myself say things about Alex that I'd never said before, expressing myself in a way I never thought possible. And now I understand. It's when I'm with him-not without him-that I'm nothing. So simple, so ba.n.a.l. Yet it's been true this whole time.

I look with astonishment and grat.i.tude at the woman standing in front of me. Finally, I understand the meaning of this seemingly chance meeting here in Marhem.

"I'm sorry about your mother. Were you close?"

I feel a stab of pain in my heart.

"I miss her so much."

She nods briefly and is just about to open the door when she stops. She leans toward me, so close that one of her curls brushes against my temple.

"Make sure your daughter is somewhere else," she whispers. "And make it look like an accident."

Then she's gone. A minute later, I hear the car start, pick up speed, and finally fade into the distance. I stand in the hall, frozen in place. Everything I thought was lost-what I thought had vanished in the chasm opened by my mother's last breath-all of that I can rediscover. All of that I'm going to reclaim. Myself. My daughter. Our future.

A mother's love is boundless, wild, and beautiful. I will honor my mother's memory and continue to strive for the same goals she did. But my path will be different from the one she took. While she chose submission, I choose to fight. Where she chose gentleness, I choose determination. Slowly, I turn around and go back to the living room. I have a lot to think about before I go home. A lot to plan. I sit down on the sofa, the side where your mother was sitting. If I close my eyes, I can still feel the presence of her story. It gives me both solace and strength. I know that I can make it through this. If she could, I can.

I picture Smilla, hear her infectious laughter ringing in my ears. Sometime, many years from now, maybe we'll sit down and talk. A mother and her grown daughter. Then I'll tell her about my path through life, about the lessons I've learned. I don't yet know exactly what I'll say. But I do know where I'll begin. I know what the first sentence of my story will be: A good mother is not shaped by circ.u.mstances. She is the one who decides how to shape them.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

My thanks to my diligent publisher, my insightful first readers, my wonderful friends, and my whole supportive and loving family.

Last but not least, I thank you for reading my book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Photo 2015.

Caroline Eriksson holds a master's degree in social psychology and worked for more than ten years in human-resource management before deciding to pursue writing, her childhood dream. Her first two novels are based on historical Swedish murder cases, and her debut, The Devil Helped Me, was nominated for Stora Ljudbokspriset (the Big Audiobook Prize) in 2014.

Caroline has lived all over the world. She attended high school in Quantico, Virginia; studied at the University of Adelaide in Australia; and now lives in Stockholm. She denies being a daredevil but admits that she once threw herself off a mountain in New Zealand in a hang-gliding experiment.

Her greatest adventure today is raising her two children, and she satisfies any residual wanderl.u.s.t by exploring the most terrifying parts of life-its dark psychological elements-in her writing. The Missing is Caroline's first psychological suspense thriller and her first book translated into English. She's already hard at work on her next novel.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR.

Photo 2007 Steven T. Murray.

Tiina Nunnally has translated over sixty works of fiction from Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. The Swedish Academy has honored her for her contributions to "the introduction of Swedish culture abroad." And she was appointed Knight of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit for her efforts on behalf of Norwegian literature in the United States. Nunnally makes her living as a full-time literary translator.

end.