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“Oh, ancestors protect us, Mom!” said Hiljd. “You’re not serious.”
Hiljd’s mother considered. “It was a sacrifice. I didn’t get to have a career or pursue things I wanted, not like you got to, but I had… I mean, you’re all alone, Hiljd. I’m going to die, and it’ll be you, on your own, and is that what you want?”
Hiljd groaned, rubbing her forehead.
“Well, I mean, that’s kind of what we did,” said Mariana, linking her hands with her husband’s. “Not that our business is yours, though. It’s ours. We both work at it, but we’re a team, you know. We work together. I think that’s kind of the key. You need to work together.” She turned to Hiljd. “You and Valdi, you were both just… I don’t know if you guys ever got the chance to talk about whether you wanted the same thing. That bond just had its way with you guys. You were so young.”
Hiljd’s mother shrugged. “I was younger than you were with Valdemar when I married your father. And you, Gunnar, did you have some woman run off on you while you were working hard for her because she didn’t feel like you were supporting her enough?”
He cleared this throat. “Well, I mean, she… we didn’t…”
“I knew it,” said Hiljd’s mother. “This is our job as women. We are the glue that holds it all together, and if we all get selfish like this, everything falls apart.”
“Well, what if men take a turn at being the glue?” muttered Hiljd.
“They’re not good at it,” said Hiljd’s mother. “Women are naturally better at—”
“At what?” said Hiljd. “At being subjugated to other people’s will?”
“You always make it sound like it’s a bad thing, but it’s a beautiful thing, giving to your husband and your children,” said Hiljd’s mother. “It’s the way we all feel connected to each other. It’s how we find our purpose.”
“You’re saying that being a doctor, healing people, that’s not being connected or purposeful?” Hiljd said to her mother. “You’re saying that I should, what? Quit my job and just be satisfied with whatever my husband does? Valdemar’s job was reading archaic literature and talking about it with nineteen-year-olds. That’s more purposeful than whatIdo?”
“No, you should do both,” said Gunnar. “I don’t see why you’re talking about quitting your job. Do both.”
“Because that’s easy,” said Hiljd to him. “Because you’re doing both. Running a business and keeping a relationship going.”
“Well, I-Icoulddo it.”
“Could you? So, why didn’t you?”
He let out a breath.
“If that woman of his wouldn’t have been so demanding,” spoke up Hiljd’s mother. “Then it wouldn’t have been a problem.”
“No, no,” he said, and he rubbed his forehead. “It wasn’t her fault. She was just asking me to be there more often, to prioritize her, and I…”
“You were raised in a culture that told you it was okay to prioritize yourself,” said Hiljd, “because you’re a man, and your needs are important, whereas we—women—are all raised to prioritize everyone except ourselves—our husbands, our children, our parents, our siblings, and perfect fucking strangers—”
“No!” He glared at her. “No one is raised thinking it’s all right to be selfish. I feel it, too, what you’re talking about. And I don’t think women should do more than men. I really don’t. I don’t even think women do. Like, women don’t even understand what it’s like to be a man, how much is on your head. You don’t even get it. Like, the first time there’s a spider, what do you do?”
Hiljd’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”
Mariana was laughing. “No, no, it’s true. I am a strong woman, and I can handle anything. But not creepy-crawlies.” She lay her head on her husband’s shoulder. “Then I need a big, strong man to save me.”
“I know what you’re talking about,” said her husband to Gunnar, nodding. “I know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s like, there’s a noise, and she wakes you up in the middle of the night, and she’s like, ‘Go check that out.’ Like, that’s yourjob. Go check out the dangerous noise in the middle of the night. Go put yourself out there and… it’s not just about how you could get hurt—which no one askswomento do. It’s about how it’s your responsibility to make sureshedoesn’t get hurt. And that’s never on women. Never.”
Gunnar nodded. “Yeah.”
“You menlikethat protective bullshit,” countered Hiljd. “And anyway, newsflash, been living on my own for years—killing my own spiders, setting my own mouse traps, investigating my own strange noises, and opening my own peanut butter jars.”
“But sweetie,” said her mother, “it’s not natural for a woman—”
“Sure it is!” said Hiljd. “I don’t need a man to protect me. I don’t need a man for anything.” She turned on Mariana’s husband. “And, anyway, when has that strange noiseeverbeen somethingactuallydangerous?”
Mariana’s husband shrugged. “Okay, never.”
“It’s a hypothetical,” said Hiljd. “Your hypothetical male-bravado-role that never materializes—
