Twenty years later and the wound was still there. He had kept his promise. Until he met Linda. She had forced him to dare.
Now Eva had sabotaged everything by picking the wound open again.
He heard her drinking from the glass. Sensed her movements as shadows in the dark.
‘I have only one question. What is it you want?’
He closed his eyes. Gave an honest answer.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then I want you to leave.’
‘Linda, please.’
‘I know what I want, I’ve known it for a long time, and I’ve told you about it. You told me what you wanted too, but I realise now that you didn’t mean a word of it.’
‘Yes I did.’
‘You most certainly did not!’
‘Yes I did, it’s just that everything is different now.’
‘Well, so be it. Then there wasn’t any more to it than that. You find out that your wife is doing it with someone else and suddenly we don’t mean shit any more. Bloody hell!’
She lay back on the bed again.
‘Linda, that’s not what this is about.’
‘Then what is it that has changed so much? If it’s not your feelings for me? Just a few days ago we went and looked at a flat together!’
Give me a year on a desert island.
With all my choices intact.
‘Can’t you wait for me?’
‘Wait for what? For you to see if you can get her back?’
‘No!’
‘What am I supposed to wait for, then? For you to make up your mind whether I’m good enough as a replacement?’
‘Cut it out, Linda. I just feel that everything’s moving too fast. I do realise that because I’m reacting this way that . . . that . . .’
He broke off. What was it he had actually realised?
‘That you actually love your wife?’
‘No, that’s not true. I really don’t.’
Or did he?
‘It’s not that. I just realise that . . . that I’m not ready yet . . . it wouldn’t be fair to you to . . .’
Please, get me out of this!
‘I’m just not ready. It wouldn’t be fair to you if we started a life together when I’m feeling this way.’
‘So you think I should sit and wait for you? In case you ever happen to be ready?’
‘Everything is so much easier for you! You’re not risking anything.’
She sat up again.
‘I’m not risking anything! I’m a day-care teacher who’s having an affair with the father of one of the children! What do you think will happen to me when this gets out? And those emails that somebody sent? How do you think it feels to have someone go into my computer and find my private letters and then send them off? Don’t you get it? Somebody knows. Somebody who has seen us. Who’s trying to punish me!’
‘It wasn’t Eva. I know you think so, but she’s not like that. And why in hell would she do it? She must be satisfied by now. It gives her a free hand, after all.’
Linda was silent, and he saw that she was shaking her head, slowly shaking it back and forth in disgust.
At him.
‘Listen to yourself. Listen to what you’re saying. Poor little rejected Henrik. It’s such a fucking shame!’
He didn’t reply.
He had lost her.
She went over and opened the cabin door. The sharp glare from the fluorescent lights in the hallway blinded him. All that was left of her was a black silhouette.
‘You’re never going to be ready, Henrik. If I were you I’d spend my time finding out who I am and what I actually want to do with my life. Then you can go out and involve others in your future.’
He swallowed. The lump in his throat wouldn’t go away.
‘Now go.’
He couldn’t recall the last time he had felt so nervous. The enormous bouquet of roses on the seat next to him suddenly looked grotesque, like a foolish prop in an even more foolish film. It was just after ten in the morning, and he was grateful that he would have the day alone at home so he could collect himself before she came home from work. He hadn’t called to tell her that he was returning a day early.
He was close now. Close to home. But he had never felt so far away. He cursed at a badly parked old Mazda that stood halfway out in the road just before the right turn into his street. With one hand on the wheel he manoeuvred his way past and in the next moment he saw his house.
Her car was in the driveway.
Why wasn’t she at work?
And then the next thought.
Maybe she wasn’t alone inside. Maybe she had made sure to bring home her lover now that Henrik was out of the way for a few days, show him their home, what she had to offer in the way of material assets. The thought disgusted him as much as it scared him. He stood alone now while there were two of them. And he was the one who would have to leave the house, she was the one who had the financial wherewithal to buy him out. And then that other bastard would move into his house, get to enjoy all the hard work he had done to fix it up. Fuck. And she who had been so understanding. Suggested maybe he should go away for a few days and think. I’ll take care of everything here at home in the meantime, it’s quite all right, the main thing is that you feel good again. I’m here if you need me, I always will be. Maybe I’ve been poor at showing it, but I’ll try to improve.
How was it possible to be so cold and calculating, all to get rid of him for a few days so she could fuck her lover in peace. Who was she really, this woman he had lived with for almost fifteen years? Did he know her at all?
And the trip she had paid for. And the champagne. Had it all been to assuage her guilty conscience?
He opened the car door, took the bouquet of roses and climbed out. If she had seen him through a window he couldn’t very well retreat now. But what would he do if the other man was in the house?
He took his time after he put the key in the door. Made as much noise as possible to give them time to interrupt whatever they were doing. A bedroom drama was the last thing he wanted to deal with right now. He put his bag down on the hall floor and looked around for strange shoes or coats without finding any.
Her voice from upstairs.
‘Hello?’
Instinctively he hid the bouquet behind his back.
‘It’s only me.’
Her steps across the floor upstairs and then her feet, legs and finally all of her visible halfway down the stairs, where she stopped. The expression on her face was hard to read, maybe surprised, maybe annoyed.
‘I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow night.’
‘No, I know. I changed my mind.’
He swallowed his impulse to ask if she was lonely, his need to know.
They stood there looking at each other, neither of them ready to take the next step. The bouquet burned in his hand, suddenly so embarrassing that he wanted to back out and toss it away before it was discovered.
It was impossible to determine what he actually felt when he saw her. Only a desire to be able to go up the stairs in peace and quiet, sink down in their sofa and let everything be normal. Decide who was going to pick up Axel at day-care, where he would be able to drive without having a stomach ache, and then eat a normal Tuesday dinner together. Ask how Axel was doing, whether anyone had called and where she had put his mail and whether
