Morten later learned that there had been a great many studies and debates and codes of conduct written to control the information and tone of conversation between doctors and patients in response to the question of longevity. The professional consensus favored a stance of managed ignorance. Oh, there are many factors at play, they would often say, and a lot we still don’t know. There’s diet, weight, attitude, prior history, age, support systems, and dumb luck that you may label miracle. All these factors factor in, one might say, and there are many possible outcomes. For your case . . . we can’t really know, so let’s focus on the treatment. That is a common approach. It was not Dr. Nilsen’s.
“Mrs. Ødegård,” he had said, “you have a twenty-nine percent chance of surviving five years. Those five years will be declining years, and they will be hard for you and those around you.”
And then—because his son was taking drugs and he and his wife were strained to the emotional breaking point and couldn’t believe that all their education and experience gave them no edge over common folk, and because their failure seemed to prove that his own father might have been right—he continued beyond the point of necessity or even utility. If he had stayed with convention he would have told Astrid’s husband first. But he strayed: “Your family will likely react in one of two ways. They will either start to distance themselves from you now, imperceptibly at first and not at all consciously, but genuinely and significantly to protect themselves from their eventual loss, or else they will redouble their love and commitment to you, making your death that much more unbearable and excruciating. If you love your family, I suggest you think about this.”
This is what Astrid conveyed to Morten later that night in their bedroom when the children were asleep. They drank a white wine that was dry and cold. He now has no memory of its taste.
It was not a twenty-nine percent chance of a cure. Or surviving for a full life. It was twenty-nine percent of lasting five years.
“You’re suffering from perspective,” he said to her.
“That’s what we say about Marcus,” she said. Her voice was weak.
“He asks very big questions,” Morten said.
“All children do,” she told him.
“Yes,” Morten replied, “but they don’t all lose sleep over it. He does.”
“I’m dying, Morten.”
“I know,” he said. They did not lie about this.
“I think I know what it’s going to be like,” she said in the dark. That night she wore a flannel robe of blues and blacks. Crosshatched and boxy. She often slept in a scarf. He bought her one of fine cashmere. It held the heat she produced that much longer.
“Tell me,” he said.
She turned her head and looked out the window. A waxing moon. A sliver on the edge of a black ball.
“Where was I before I was born?” she said. “That’s what they all ask.”
“Who?”
“Children. Adults. All of us. Where was I? Before there was a where. Before there was an I. It is inconceivable,” she’d said, “for there to be no self and no place to put it. That’s what it will be like. Like falling backwards into a pocket of space that constricts and then pops out of existence.”
He said nothing.
“Where am I now, Morten?”
“Here with me.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Between something and nothing? Quite a lot.”
“It’s not enough, though, is it?” she’d said.
“Actually, it is.” He raised himself higher onto his elbow. “You know what the secret to death is?” Morten said.
She smiled at that. He had made her smile. He remembers that.
“Tell me the secret to death,” she answered, mocking him.
“You have to back into it,” he’d told her.
“What does that mean?”
“You stop staring ahead into the void. There’s nothing to see. You need to turn around. Watch life. Watch it like a rabbit about to come out of a hat. Keep your eye on it the whole time until—like that—the seeing is no more. That’s the trick.”
“What made you such an expert?” she asked.
“I’ve never once taken my eyes off of you,” he told her.
She remained still.
“Do you remember our song?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. But she didn’t name it. Instead she looked at the moon through the frosted window. “The children,” she finally said. “Marcus won’t be able to do this. My death,” she said to Morten, “will change him. But my dying . . . my prolonged act of dying . . . that will destroy him. We need to do something about that. We need to make the prolonged part go away. Can you do that for me?” she asked.
“Yes,” he’d said.
Astrid nodded as though the conversation was over.
From the vent above their bed came a scuffing sound—the sound of an animal trapped inside. A mouse, a bird, a squirrel. Everything that could fit had been lodged in the chimney at some point, and this sound was usually the first indication. They looked at each other and before Morten could comment there was a loud crash from inside the house.
Morten swung himself off the bed and ran into the children’s room—found Sigrid fast asleep with a stuffed camel—but he didn’t see Marcus.
“Marcus?” he called out.
“Here,” came a weak voice, a voice that was fighting back tears.
In the downstairs bathroom Morten found Marcus curled up in the fetal position, clutching his left arm tightly against his body. He wore mismatching pajamas of red bottoms and a blue T-shirt top, and both were too small for him. His face was awash in tears from pain, but he held back his screams. Morten heard his son biting for air as he rocked back and forth on the gray-slate floor, pressing his forehead into the stone and starting to wail over what would prove to be a broken arm.
Marcus often used this bathroom when they ran out of paper upstairs. How he broke his arm, though, was a mystery Morten planned to solve later but never did.
“It’s going to be all right, Marcus. Everything will be OK,” he
