Have there been other nights when he’s missed me? Has he lain next to his partner—this innocent woman who loves him probably just as much as I once did—and thought, I miss Carrie? Does he remember what it used to feel like when we slept together? When we played each other’s bodies like instruments?
Fuck you,I write, a few times.
Delete.
You don’t get to send messages like that. Not after all these years. Not after you stamped out any hope and allowed me to give my heart to someone else.
Delete.
Yes, I would like to stay in your summer house.
Of course I cannot stay in your fucking summer house. Fuck off!!!! Are you out of your mind?
Maybe he is. He seemed sane, but who knows what he’s been through, what it did to his brain? Nobody comes through that kind of experience unscathed.
I return to my damage-control surgery notes. Pale gray fuzzes lightly around the roller blinds; morning isn’t far away now. My fridge hums and sighs; the time is 5:01. I get into bed beside Maya, who’s asleep with her mouth open, but I know this isn’t going to work. I retreat instead to my uncomfortable sofa and curl up on my side, blanket over me. It’s brightening rapidly outside; Stockholm is rising.
I don’t know how it happens, only that before I have time to think, I open up Roof again and send Johan a message saying,Actually, the summer house for a night or two would be good, if you’re sure. My family are coming out to visit me on Monday for a few days, but I would love to get some peace before then. Thank you.
He comes online instantly, even though it’s only 5:15 a.m. He’s read it, and now I can’t take it back either.
Thirty.
Maya packs the next morning, readying herself for the long trip back to Devon, to our ailing father.
“I think there’s a part of you that’s still wondering,” she says as we hug goodbye on the curb outside my apartment building. “I’m not stupid, Carrie. Please be careful. You have absolutely no grounds to trust Johan, even if he wasn’t guilty. So much of it still doesn’t add up.”
I long to bring her into what I’ve done. To have someone—just one person—on this dangerous ride with me. I resolve to call Dell later. She’s just about the only person I know who will listen without judgment when I tell her I’m going to stay in Johan’s cabin. Because I can’t fool myself into any sort of narrative about closure. This is an act of opening.
—
After a hire-car satnav error that sends me thirty miles through a corridor of unrelenting pine trees, I arrive on the peninsula where Johan spends his summers. The airy expanse of green countryside is arelief after the pines. Red tin-roofed agricultural barns are placed at intervals, as if in a children’s storybook. Even the cows are neat.
I spend the final ten minutes bumping down a gravel track through an older forest. Deer scatter like birds in front of my car: it’s like driving on the moor at night. Many driveways lead off through trees to other summer houses, marked by neatly labeled postboxes and clean, shining bins, and I remember what Robin said before I set off about Sweden, about how they just have their act together in a way we don’t.
As if reading my thoughts, Robin phones me at this very moment. “I just called on the off chance that you weren’t in an operating theater,” he says. “I’m waiting for a Zoom and I’m bored.”
I laugh. Robin’s ability to Just Be is worse than mine. It was no accident that he chose a career requiring him to be available to people in multiple time zones.
“I’m driving through a forest toward this cabin I’m staying at,” I tell him. “I’m later than planned; I got lost.”
“Remind me what this weekend trip is about?”
“I just needed a rest. It’s been intense.”
A filament of guilt grows in my stomach. I cannot imagine how badly it would hurt Robin if he knew whose cabin I’m on my way to for “a rest.”
“I miss you,” he says. He sounds sad suddenly, which I wasn’t expecting. Robin doesn’t do sad, but his voice is flattened, as if he’s just received bad news.
“Are you OK?”
He sighs. “Yeah. I just miss you. And I know I sound like a stuck record, but I…I saw you disintegrate, Carrie. I saw you at your lowest and it was really frightening. So I can’t help worrying about you being out there alone, working in a really stressful environment for twelve hours a day without any kind of transition. And then there’sthis situation with your dad. Are you sure you don’t want to fly home with Maya? Nobody would judge you.”
“I am sure,” I say, and it’s true. In spite of all the things he’s outlined—and they’re all entirely reasonable—I’m growing in strength each day. I feel more and more like the Carrie I left behind years ago, and I’ve missed her. “If Dad’s in any serious danger, they’ll call me. I’ll be back like a shot.”
Robin is quiet for a moment. Then he says he’s here for me if I need him. Seconds later, his Zoom starts and he says goodbye.
—
