by Isa Hansen
CHAPTER 40
Celia finally came clean, in the car, after having given Oskar a ride to his cousin’s house. They’d stopped in the driveway with the engine still running, the windshield wipers working against a downfall of wet snow. He was about to hop out, but she reached out and touched his arm. “Oskar, I have to tell you something.”
He’d opened the passenger door and was lifting himself out of the seat.
“I might know who the stalker is.”
He sat back down, eyes wide.
She said: “Erik.”
Oskar’s brows furrowed. “Who?”
“My uncle Erik.”
At that, Oskar swung the door shut. “Your uncle?” he said softly.
“I know,” she said, craning low over the steering wheel. “I can’t get it into my head either. But I think it could be him.”
“But why? Why would he…?”
“He never liked the idea of me keeping the summer house. He said it wasn’t worth renovating.”
“Oh.” Oskar waved his hand in a gesture of relief. “If you only knew how many of my relatives don’t understand the concept of renovation. They don’t understand that wallpaper is actually removable—”
“That’s not all, though, remember how he also wanted to sell the house? And—” Celia bit into her lip. “I found out that he’s lied, about so many things.”
As quickly and as thoroughly as she could, she recounted the conversation with Lottis. Afterward, Oskar sat quiet for several moments, his eyes on the window shield wipers that pushed to and fro with intense, rigid motions.
He said quietly, “Erik shouldn’t have lied to you like that, but that doesn’t have to mean that he is what you fear he is. There could be other reasons for him hiding the truth.”
“Maybe,” she said.
“Lelle.”
Oskar was observing her now, his stark blue eyes wary and concerned. “This is getting out of hand. If anything more happens, and I mean, anything more, even just the smallest little thing, we need to report it.”
She stared out the window. She tilted her head, tracing the little flakes of snow as they floated down. Funny how peaceful they looked.
“Celia.” Oskar’s tone was sharp. “You understand that, yes?”
She nodded, her gaze still out the window.
“Yeah, I get that.”
***
While Oskar was at his cousin’s house, Celia got busy.
The accusations she was harboring against Erik were of the severest kind. There was no way she was going to officially come out with something so detrimental without proof. If this was him, she’d need something solid to back up her claims.
She started by combing through Erik’s home office.
When she began the raid, she was pumped, alert, springy, ready for anything.
By the time she finished, after having gone through drawer after drawer of stupidly tidy papers, neat handwriting, and piles of absolutely nothing that was the least bit suspicious or even remotely interesting, she was exhausted.
For further record, the handwriting didn’t look anything like the writing from her night guard.
Since everything was so orderly, she had to take great care in pulling things out and putting them back in the exact same way.
By the time she got to Erik and Anette’s room, she was more than exhausted—she felt downright slimy.
It was horrible of her to be going through their things. She had to continuously remind herself that these were two people who had both lied to her. That didn’t make the job any easier, though.
When she’d finally gone through the entire house she could only note that Erik and Anette—as far as their belongings indicated—were squeaky clean.
Meanwhile, she felt dirty as anything.
A scorching shower would hopefully remedy that. She went for a fresh towel and started the water in the downstairs bathroom.
Within minutes, hot water streamed over her.
Almost to the point of being uncomfortable, but the heat and the water cleared her, soothed her.
She lathered her head with shampoo.
The scent of green tea rose with the steam.
She wondered what time Oskar would be done at his cousin’s. She closed her eyes, the water rushing over her. She let her thoughts free fall. Images flashed before her akin to watching scenery out the window of a fast train.
Erik. Anette. The summer house. The renovation. Oskar.
Oskar’s kiddy drawing. The one from his cousin’s child.
Squiggles. Drawing. Crayons.
She blinked shampoo out of her eyes.
Squiggles on the wall.
Her face tightened with concentration, her hair and hands full of suds.
Looks like a child has been here: Oskar nudging the wallpaper with his sneaker at a crayon doodle on the wall. That was when they’d been at her grandfather’s house for the first time.
A memory was tugging at her, flickering, forming into shape.
She was huddled, clutching a crayon. Drawing. She looked toward her grandfather. He wasn’t paying attention to her. He was on the floor, crouching on his hands and knees. Removing a board from the floor, scrambling around, then placing it back. She dropped her crayon and toddled over to where he was. Curious about the board that was removable. She started pulling at it with her fingers. Farfar said: “No, no, not a toy,” He pulled her up from the floor and ruffled her hair and together they walked away, hand in hand.
Celia stood motionless, under the rushing water.
So she had been there.
At the summer house.
She strained her memory but that was all that came to mind, her fingers clutching the crayon and farfar replacing the board.
The loose board.
She tried to recall: had they noticed a loose board during their work at the cottage? She didn’t remember anything like that, but then they hadn’t worked on the floor in the bedroom.
Could the hiding spot still be there?
She rinsed her hair and turned off the water.
Out of the shower, her skin prickled cold.
With a towel draped around her body and another around her hair, she moved into her room and went to her closet for fresh clothes.
As quickly as she could, she dressed.
Decisively, she grabbed Anette’s car keys from their spot on the hook.
During her shower the sky had turned dark. It was still snowing. Little fluffs of white twirled around in the sheen from the lamplights.
Celia headed out to the car to warm it up. She reached for the snow brush in the back seat and swept off the snow from the windows.
She waited for a few minutes inside the house before venturing back out.
The temperature in the car now comfortable, she climbed in.
She drove out of the neighborhood, beyond the town limits and onto the gravel road toward the cottage. There was no street lighting so she sat with her shoulders forward, straining her focus on the white blur of the headlights.
She parked off the road, next to the hill. She crunched up the path, cautiously, taking care not to slip.
Getting inside the cottage was a task in its own right. The cold weather caused the door to hitch.
After wrangling it open with a little violence and a lot of swearing, she stumbled in, leaving a track of snow in the hall.
She flipped on a light which did nothing to make the frigid little house seem any warmer. They really did need to get a furnace into the place. She plodded to the bedroom.
She surveyed the floor for loose boards.
Spotting a gap between boards, Celia dropped to her knees. The board wriggled.
She stuck her fingernails into the gap.
The sound of something outside.
Her hands stilled.
A car on the road, tires on gravel, closer now.
Through the heavily frosted window she could only make out the dim glow of headlights.
She sa
t, static, waiting for the car to pass.
Once the grumble of the vehicle quieted, the icy window dark again, she focused her attention back on the board.
It wasn’t lifting. She continued to wiggle it. The board was noticeably loose, but she wasn’t able to pull it up. She sat up on her haunches, scanning for something to pry up the board with. Oskar had taken his tools home, but she remembered that there was a screwdriver in the kitchen.
From a rickety drawer, she grabbed the screwdriver and returned.
Angling it into the jack, she was now able to lift the board. She took the piece, a few feet in length, and set it to the side.
In the small carved out spot in the floor there were two things:
An envelope and a roll of paper.
She took out the envelop first.
Money. A thick wad.
Just by doing a quick flip through, she assessed it to be a substantial amount. She didn’t take the time to ponder the cash.
Setting it to the side, she opened up the roll.
The first paper was a will. For the summer house. An earlier will, from 1984.
Celia scanned it. Her grandfather intended to leave the house to Liv.
The other paper was a letter. Addressed to Lars. She scanned to the end of the text, to the signature. The letter was from Maj-Britt.
She blew into her fists to warm her fingers. After skimming the first few lines, she positioned herself more steadily on the floor, rubbed her palms against each other for warmth, and began reading.
October 1, 1984
Dear Lars,
I am writing to you now by the way of a confession.
After our divorce, I promised myself I would move forward and not become stuck in the past. To dwell on all that happened would be futile. To dwell on her would only make me bitter. I told myself I would not think of her. None of that concerned me anymore. Instead I would focus on the boys. Erik, and of course Jonas, whenever I could. It was in everyone’s best interest.
And I made good on my promise. I stayed away for so many years.
Until recently.
I don’t know what it was that made me go there. But I did. I suppose it was curiosity.
To see what had become of her.
I must confess, I went to her house.
And I saw Viveca together with her daughter. Your daughter. She’s grown up now, beautiful and very sweet. They were in their yard moving toward the house, the mother leaning on the daughter for stability. I thought Viveca might be ill or hurt, so I ran up to assist.
That’s when I realized that the mother was drunk and the daughter ashamed. The girl has helped her mother before, I could tell by the certainty of her motions.
As much as I tried, I couldn’t forget about the daughter. She stayed in my thoughts. I was worried for her.
Maybe I shouldn’t have gone poking into their lives, but I felt I had to do something. At the very least, I needed to find out how she was doing. I wanted to know that she had everything she needed in her life.
So I went to visit the girl at her school.
She talked to me during her lunch break.
Lars, your daughter is scared.
When I asked her how she’s doing, there was a horrible look in her eye.
She is frightened of someone.
And I fear she may not be empowered to speak out.
When we talked, I encouraged her to tell me anything that might be on her mind. She quietly mentioned a doctor, though she gave no specific details. I did some probing after we spoke. She saw a doctor recently. I know who he is. But I cannot be sure he is the source of her fears. The truth must come from the girl, not from one of my guesses.
I told her to confide in an adult in her life. A teacher at her school, or someone whom she can trust, but I don’t know if she will follow my advice. I am after all, a stranger.
I apologize for disrupting your vacation now that Erik is in Seattle with you. He has always needed his father, but right now I’m afraid your daughter needs you more.
She is so young still, and I don’t know that she has anyone to turn to. I will reach out to her again even though this may be pushing boundaries. In the meantime, I ask of you, please come home and look after her.
Sincerely,
Maj-Britt
Celia stooped over the letter. She read it again, then just sat with it, limp in her hands. Her fingers were so cold they’d gone completely numb.
She left the papers and the envelope out and pushed the board back into place. With the items secured under her arm, she locked up the cottage and skidded sideways down the hill back to the car.
The storm had picked up again. Freezing blasts of sleet thrashed against her. She pulled up her scarf over her face to shield herself.
She didn’t want to go back to Erik and Anette’s empty house; the place that she’d crazily spent the day rummaging through. Instead she drove to central Björkby, to a small corner pub where she’d wait until Oskar was done. She bought a soda at the bar and texted Oskar: I’m downtown. Let me know when you’re ready.
Just as she pressed send, the door slammed open and a dozen drunk Santas came rolling in. Christmas pub crawl, one of them explained to Celia with a jolly laugh and a woozy arm around her shoulder.
And then they all had to come up and hug her and shake her hand, every single one of them. They tumbled about the place, ordering drinks, brawling around and roaring holiday drinking songs.
Celia watched them from her bar stool. Like she were in a dream, or a movie. An obscure Burtonesque holiday movie.
And while she watched them, a feeling washed over her. She was so emotionally extended that she didn’t recognize the feeling right away, but it was relief.
The letter from Maj-Britt was dated the day Liv disappeared. Erik had been with his father in the States when Liv died. It wasn’t about them; it wasn’t about her family. They were not the guilty ones.
She erupted into laughter.
It was finally happening, she thought. She was losing it—going absolute batshit.
The bartender turned an eye away from the Santa invasion to throw her a suspicious glance. Probably wondering if he really only had served her a soda.
She stilled herself by chewing her straw. By the time the Santas tumbled out of the pub, her straw was as frayed as her mind.
There was a text back from Oskar. I’m ready if you are.
She pushed her glass to the side and slipped off the bar stool.
Yanking open the outer door, she braced herself.
The wind was biting. Fast, hard snowflakes were lit up by street lights. Flurries of snow blew off the roofs and onto the roads where the wind and snow formed hurricane-like patterns.
Celia pulled at her scarf and went out into the storm.
***
After relief came a slack drowsiness.
What Maj-Britt’s letter to Lars meant was that Celia had slipped back to square one.
Not that she minded being back to square one, all things considered. Anything was better than the nightmare she’d just put herself through. Also, she had a renewed lead from the letter. The doctor. Sten.
It was a frustrating lead, though, because while he very likely could have been involved with Liv, there was absolutely no way he was Nattvakten.
Right now she was too tired to even go there.
It had been a draining day that had stripped her of all her emotions and her ability to think straight. She was ready to call it quits and get some sleep.
Getting ready for bed, she became aware of Oskar shuffling around in the living room where he camped out at night. She’d told him there were bed options, but he’d said that he was perfectly content with the sofa.
After she’d picked up Oskar, she had shown him the letter: it couldn’t have been Erik after all.
If Celia hadn’t been so bone tired she’d have been ashamed. But she had no more room for that kind of emotion. Not tonight.
She listened to Oskar’s
movements while she settled down into bed. He was whistling. A soft little tune. It sounded like the kind of whistling one did without realizing it. She wondered if he often did that, whistled to himself.
She tucked herself into her duvet, glad he was there, comforted by his tune.
His whistling changed to a different key, a Christmas song now, she recognized it: Hej tomtegubbar slå i glasen …
Which got her to thinking. She looked at the time: past midnight.
It was now Christmas Eve.
CHAPTER 41
Christmas in Sweden brought a flurry of bliss for the senses. Almonds, ginger, cinnamon, and allspice. Rice porridge on the stove. Ham baking in the oven and choral music playing in minor chords. Piles of homemade candies in baskets. Lights twirled around branches, frosted windows, and snow shadows. But for Celia, lingering behind the sweet and the fragrant—the enchanted glow, the warmth, and the beauty—remained an undercurrent of darkness and danger.
On Christmas Eve, she was invited over to Ebba’s mom’s house.
Majvor and Suzanne were having a big gathering. It was a combined holiday celebration and moving in party for Suzanne who’d taken the leap and moved in with Ebba’s mother three weeks earlier. There was more food than anyone could eat, there was singing, there was obscure dancing around the Christmas tree pretending to be frogs, and there was lots of carefree socializing and laughter.
It was becoming clear to Celia how much she needed a break from the insanity of her life. At one point she was standing and talking to Suzanne. And they were having such a sweet, ordinary conversation while making Christmas porridge together. Suzanne was telling her stories about growing up in Germany and her family’s subsequent move to Sweden, followed by questions to Celia about her own life—what it was like for her growing up in a multicultural family, and for a second Celia felt like a normal kid again. She just wanted Suzanne to hug her and tell her everything was going to be all right. Not just with the nightmare that had become her life, but with the rest of it, too: the confusion around her sexual identity, love, relationships. She’d have stood there talking with Suzanne for the rest of the evening if she could have.
