‘Hi, have you got time for a cup of coffee?’
‘No, I have to get back right away. Thanks for being able to take him on such short notice.’
She set the bag on the floor of the entryway and gave her mother a quick hug.
‘His toothbrush is in the outside pocket.’
‘Did something come up?’
‘Yes. Henrik got a new client, so we thought we should celebrate a little.’
‘Oh, how nice. Who’s the client?’
‘It’s some kind of series of articles for a big magazine, I don’t know exactly. Axel! I’m leaving now.’
‘I’ll pick him up in the morning. We have to leave by seven thirty if we’re going to make it.’
Axel popped up in the doorway, followed by her father.
‘Hi, sweetheart. You’re not leaving already, are you?’
‘Yes, otherwise I won’t make it.’
Her mother filled in the lie for her this time.
‘Henrik apparently got a great new job that they’re going to celebrate.’
‘There, you see. You’ll have to tell him congratulations from me. And what about you? How did it go with that merger you were having such problems with?’
‘Oh, that worked out fine. We managed to push it through at last.’
He stood in silence, smiling. Then he reached out his hand and put it on Axel’s head.
‘You know, Axel, you have a very talented mamma. When you grow up she’ll probably be just as proud of you as we’ve been of her.’
She suddenly felt like crying. Crawling into his lap and being little again. Not thirty-five and a management consultant and a mother responsible for saving her family. She had always been able to rely on them. A solid foundation. They had always believed in her, supported her, made her believe in her own abilities and that nothing was impossible.
This time there was nothing they could do.
This time she stood utterly alone.
How could she ever admit to them that Henrik might not want to live with their daughter any more. The one they were so proud of, the one who was so talented and strong and successful.
She squatted down in front of Axel and pulled him close to hide her uncertainty.
‘I’ll pick him up in the morning. Have a great time tonight.’
She forced a smile and went down the steps and over to her car. Through the windscreen she could see them standing on the porch and waving.
Together.
Pappa’s arm around Mamma’s shoulders. Forty years and they still stood there, side by side, content with their life and so proud of and grateful for their only daughter.
She would like to stand like that someday herself. It was this childhood home that she wanted to recreate for Axel. The security. A total faith that no matter what happened it would be there.
The family.
Unwavering.
It was what you could always fall back on if everything else went to hell. She had been privileged to grow up that way. With Mamma and Pappa always there if she needed them. Always ready to help out. And the older she got, the less she needed them, as long as she knew they would always be there.
As long as she knew that.
Their boundless faith in her, that she would make it, that she was capable. No matter what she chose to do.
What was wrong with her own generation? Why were they never satisfied? Why did everything and everyone always have to be measured, compared, evaluated? What was this unresolved restlessness that kept driving them onward, forward, to the next goal? A total inability to stop and be happy about the goals they had already reached, a constant fear that someone might pass them by, that they had missed something that might have been slightly better, made them slightly happier. So many choices, but how could they manage all of them?
The older generation had fought to realise their dreams: education, a home, children, and then the goal was attained. None of them had ever suspected that they might need so much more. No one accused them of lacking ambition if they stayed at a job more than a couple of years; on the contrary, loyalty was honourable. They had had the ability to sit down and feel content with their lives. They fought hard and then enjoyed their successes.
She opened the front door as quietly as possible and sneaked into the kitchen, putting the champagne in the freezer. She didn’t see Henrik around; the door to his office was closed. A quick shower and then take out the new lacy lingerie she had bought at lunch-time. The nervousness came over her again when she looked at her face in the bathroom mirror. Maybe she ought to make an effort more often. But how would she manage? She took off the silver clasp at the nape of her neck and let her hair fall over her shoulders. He had always liked it best when her hair was down.
For a moment she considered putting on only her robe over the black lingerie, but she didn’t dare. Good Lord. Here she was standing in her bathroom where she had stood naked with her family every morning and evening for almost eight years, and she was nervous about asking her husband to come to dinner.
How had it come to this?
She put on black jeans and a jumper.
The door to the office was still closed when she came out. She listened but couldn’t hear his fingers on the keyboard. There was utter silence inside. But then suddenly the beep of an email being sent. Maybe he had finished working.
She quickly set the table with the good dishes and was just about to light the candles when he was suddenly standing in the kitchen doorway. He glanced at the festive table setting, but there was no hint of joy in his face.
She smiled at him.
‘Would you switch off the big light?’
He hesitated an instant before he turned and did as she asked. She picked up the bottle of champagne, unscrewed the wire, and twisted out the cork. The champagne glasses they had received as a wedding present were already on the table. He was still standing in the doorway, didn’t make a move to approach her.
She walked over and handed him a glass.
‘Here you are.’
She had heart palpitations now. Why couldn’t he help her out? Did he have to make her look ridiculous because she was trying?
She went back and sat down at the table. For a moment she thought he would go back into his office. But then he finally came and sat down.
The silence was like an extra wall in the room. It cut right across the table, with each of them on one side of it.
She looked down at her plate but couldn’t eat a bite. On the chair next to her lay the blue plastic folder with the tickets. She wondered if he saw her hand shaking when she handed it to him through the silence.
‘This is for you.’
He regarded her outstretched hand suspiciously.
‘What is it?’
‘Could be something nice. You’ll have to look and see.’
He opened the folder as she watched. She knew that he had always wanted to go to Iceland. An adventure holiday. It had never happened. She had preferred holidays in the sun where she could rest, and she was always the one who planned and arranged their holiday trips.
‘I thought that Axel could stay with Mamma and Pappa, and we could go alone, just the two of us, for a change.’
He raised his eyes and looked at her, and his eyes frightened her. Never before had anyone looked at her with such an annihilating coldness. Then he put down the plastic folder on the table and stood up, looked her straight in the eye as if to ensure that each and every word would hit its mark.
‘There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that I want to do together with you.’
