She stood with her back against the closed bedroom door. Axel’s calm, secure breathing. Always in the middle, like a link between them, night after night. An assurance and a commitment that they belonged together forever.
Mother, father, child.
There was no alternative.
He was sitting out there on the sofa with her whole life in his hands. What channel would he choose? He had just taken away control over her life; what she wanted didn’t matter, everything was up to him.
Without getting undressed she crawled under the covers, lay down next to the little body and felt the panic grow.
How was she going to resolve this?
And then the numbing weariness. Utterly exhausted from always being the one who took responsibility, who was efficient, who got everything moving and saw to it that what had to be done got done. At the very beginning of their relationship they had assumed their roles. Back then they had laughed at it sometimes, joking about their differences. Over the years the wheel ruts had worn so deep that it was impossible to turn; it was barely possible to get up and look over the edge any longer. She did what had to be done first, and then what she really wanted to do if there was any time left over. He did just the opposite. And by the time he had done what he wanted to do, whatever had to be done was already done. She envied him. She would love to be able to act like that. But then everything would collapse. All she knew was that she felt an indescribable longing for him to take over the helm once in a while. Allow her to sit down for a while so she could rest. Be allowed to lean on
Instead he sat out there on their recently paid-off sofa and watched the traffic report and put their shared future into question because he wasn’t having fun anymore. As if she were going around cheering with joy about their life. But at least she tried, they did have a child together, God damn it!
How had it come to this? When did the moment occur? Why hadn’t he told her how he felt? Once they had had a good time together. She had to make him see that things could be like that again, if only they didn’t give up.
But how was she going to cope?
The sound from the TV was turned off. Expectantly she listened to his footsteps approaching the bedroom door. And then the disappointment when without slowing down they continued on towards his office.
There was only one thing she wanted.
Only one thing.
That he would come into the room and hold her and tell her that everything would be back to normal. That they would get through this together, that everything they had succeeded in building up over all these years was worth fighting for. That she didn’t have to worry.
He never came.
He knew it the moment she came into the room. She had been following him through the house in recent months, trying to get a conversation started, but somehow he always managed to evade it. It would be so easy just to keep quiet, keep hiding in the everyday atrophy and avoid taking the step into the abyss.
Now it was too late. Now she was standing there blocking the way into his asylum in the office, and this time he didn’t stand a chance.
How could he ever tell her the truth? What words would he dare use to speak of it? And then that paralysing fear. Fear of what he knew, fear of what it would mean, and fear of her reaction. He wondered if she could hear his heart pounding, how it was trying to fight its way out and flee to avoid being forced to reveal what was hidden inside.
And then her question that started the ball rolling.
‘Do you mean that you’re actually questioning our future together?’
Yes! Yes! Yes!
‘I don’t know.’
He hated the fear, and he hated the fact that she was the one who provoked it. He couldn’t even look at her. He was suddenly struck by the realisation that she disgusted him. Disgusted him because she had stood like a rock by his side the past few years as he slowly sank deeper and deeper into despair. She made everything keep on rolling as usual, as if it made no difference that he scarcely participated any more. Yet all she succeeded in doing was to make him feel like a helpless little boy.
Always so fast. Everything finished and ready before he even managed to see that it needed to be done. Always ready to solve every problem, even those that were none of her concern, before he even had a chance to think about it. Like an impatient steam locomotive she charged ahead, trying to make everything right. But it was
Maybe she never had.
He was merely something that had been hooked onto the locomotive for the journey.
Not for one second had she understood how he really felt. That the boredom and predictability were slowly but surely suffocating him. Half his life was gone, and this was how the rest of it was going to look. There would never be anything more than this. The hour had arrived when it was impossible to postpone any longer everything he wanted to do. Everything he had always planned on doing someday. Well, someday was here now. All the dreams and expectations that he had obediently pushed aside were beginning to cry out, asking him more and more urgently what they should do. Should they leave him or did he want them to stay, and, if so, why? Why should they stick around when he didn’t intend to fulfil a single one of them?
He thought about his parents. They sat there in Katrineholm in their house that was all paid off. Everything finished and settled. One evening after another, side by side in their two well-used TV recliners. All conversation had long since stopped. All consideration, all expectation, all respect, everything had slowly but surely died a natural death years ago from lack of nourishment. The only thing remaining was a mutual reproach for all they had missed, all that had been lost to them. The fact that they hadn’t been able to give each other more and that many years ago it was already too late. Twenty metres from their easy chairs were the train tracks, and every hour, year after year, the trains had passed that could have taken them away from there. By now they had come to terms with the fact that their own trains had left long ago, although other trains would continue thundering past, rattling the always sparkling glass in their living-room window. They had never purchased a summer cabin, although the income from the sale of Father’s car dealership would easily have permitted it. They never took a trip. As if a purely physical displacement might pose some kind of threat to their lives. It was a long time since they had managed to get up and drive the hundred kilometres to Stockholm. They hadn’t even come on Axel’s sixth birthday; they just sent a belated birthday card with their signatures and a folded hundred-krona bill. Instead of participating in family gatherings they would stay at home and wallow in their feelings of inferiority, prompted by Eva’s well-to-do parents with their academic degrees and intellectual friends. Imprisoned in their own lives they stayed where they were, bitter and careworn.
As if they had each been permanently taken hostage by the other, terrified of being alone.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw her standing motionless in the living room. The sound of the TV came intermittently, like a pulse in synch with his heartbeat.
He felt a desperate need to buy some time, cling to something that was still anchored in his old routines.
‘Did you buy milk on the way home?’
She didn’t answer. Fear throbbed in his stomach. Why hadn’t he just kept his mouth shut?
‘Can’t you turn off the TV?’
His index finger reacted automatically but pressed the wrong button. A second of hesitation and his reptilian brain decided not to try again. The feeling of suddenly not obeying pushed the fear aside. He was the one holding the control.
‘Have you met someone else?’
