This woman has a big brain and an even bigger heart, he said on our wedding day. Shortly after we promised to stand by each other no matter what.
Was he worried about the police that day? That strange energy he’dhad in Bangkok had dissipated entirely by the time we’d landed on Koh Samui. But did a part of him think, as he made those vows, that he might be unable to keep them? That we might never make it to Koh Tao?
Did he even care?
That’s what used to keep me awake at night in the weeks after I returned to London. Had he thought of me at all when he’d agreed to do whatever it was he did? Had it occurred to him that his decisions could harm us?
Despite the dreamlike quality of this moment, I feel that same old wrench of anger as I remember the misery and confusion of those early weeks: the fight to protect my career, the endless arguments with Maya about my inability to eat. I recall those bone-cold winter days when I worked until I dropped before going home for a sleepless night in his flat.
I stare at the table, but I’m too far away to see anyone properly. Could I move closer? There’s no chance he would expect to see me on a back street in Stockholm on a January afternoon. There is precious little chance he’d even recognize me, come to that; my neat bob was replaced by long, featureless hair years ago and I don’t dress smartly anymore. The Carrie Cole who ironed a blouse every night was from a different world.
The sun slides away behind a cloud, and I shiver. Do I actually want to make contact with him? Is that why I’m here? Or do I just want to see him from afar?
The delivery man is throwing commercial laundry bags into the van from his loud trolleys; he’ll be off soon, taking my cover with him. There’s an ornamental gathering of trees a couple of meters away, but their branches are above head height so they’re unsuitable for stalking.
I wish I could call Dad. He’d get me out of here. He’d say something kind about the things we do when our brains aren’t practicing logic, and then he’d help me find a nice bakery or something. Somewhere to take stock with a cup of tea.
My phone starts buzzing—but of course it’s not my father, who’s unlikely ever to call me again. It’s the school.
“Nothing to worry about, but we had to take Maeve out of class just now,” the head tells me briskly. “She was being extremely disruptive in PE; she didn’t respond well to being asked to stop climbing the wall. It got to the point where Miss Redmond wasn’t able to safely look after the class. Perhaps we can have a chat before pickup today?”
“Is she OK?” I ask. I know what my girl will be doing now: sitting in defiance, pretending not to care, while inside the shame will be burning a hole in her heart. My poor impulsive Maeve, already so aware of the difference between her own behavior and her classmates’, but powerless over her inability to conform.
She’s fine, the head tells me, just spending some time in the Nest with a book before rejoining her class.
“Can Raffy go in there with her for a few minutes? That would help.”
“I don’t think so,” the head begins, and so starts a lengthy conversation that I feel unable to terminate. It infuriates me that it’s always me they call when something happens, that the head didn’t think to ring off and try Robin when she heard a foreign ringtone. But what excuse do I have right now not to be there for my daughter, who’s probably acting out because I’ve never been away before?
ADHD was one of many things I knew could be a possible outcome for my babies, born so early, but I sensed it in Maeve long before anyone else saw it, even when she was a tiny, sick little shrimp in the NICU incubator. Ultrapremature babies aren’t expected to open their eyes for a while, but Maeve’s opened on the second day of her life. Shemoved her body in ways they said most preemies couldn’t, tiny fists clawing the air before she was even able to come off oxygen.
School is always going to be more challenging for Maeve. It is therefore my job to support her through these years: to help regulate, ease transitions, share the load of her anxiety. And yet I am here, across the road from an architectural consultancy in Stockholm, trying to catch a glimpse of a man I married on a beach in Thailand aged twenty-seven.
What has happened to me?
I don’t think Johan’s here, anyway. I can’t feel him. I’d like to hope that the sixth-Johan-sense I once had wore off a long time ago, but I suspect it’s still there. I suspect my body would still know when his was nearby, which in itself is unsettling.
I start walking back toward the conference hotel. I have frightened myself. I take long breaths of the perishing air, telling myself reassuring things I’m not sure I believe. I record videos for both children, whose little bodies I’m longing to cuddle, and stop at a shop to buy them gifts.
I sit in a park, drinking a takeaway herbal tea while I wait the ten minutes remaining until I can video call them after school. Yanika has emailed me:Good to see you, Carrie. I hope you’ll forgive the questions. I knew what your answer would be, but had to ask. I’ll see you in March.
At 3:45 I video call Robin, who hasn’t even left for the school run yet. I’d forgotten about the time difference.
“Are you OK, my darling?” he asks, after I’ve updated him about Maeve. “Is everything going all right out there?”
Tell him.
“I…I’m just tired. I met Yanika today. She asked me some pretty tough questions, but really, I should have seen them coming. Apart from that I think it went well. I mean, she pretty much offered me a job, so…”
He’s been moving around the kitchen, getting after-school snacks for the kids, but at this he stops dead. “A job? I thought you were talking about a clinical attachment?”
“Oh, I am—don’t worry. She just said,you should come and work for me. She wasn’t serious. But I think that bodes well, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Robin says after a pause. He runs a hand through his hair. He looks harassed. “As long as you’re sure you’re not going to ask if we can move to Stockholm?”
“Oh, Robin. Of course not.”
“It’s hard to know what’s coming these days,” he says quietly.
