A CHILD MADE TO ORDER: gripping psychological suspense

by Piotr Ryczko

  He paused, just to make space for the same thoughts they were both thinking now.

  And Viola knew that whatever help she could get from that man, that opportunity was gone now. Pål’s tone fell back to that of a reserved drone.

  “I am glad you enjoyed my theory. But it is exactly what you said, a theory. And those leads you are talking about... All dead.” He fell silent.

  It wouldn’t be the first time he had gutted her open. As if to confirm this, his tone changed from a distant drone to a caring comment. A father instructing his daughter on the hardships of life.

  “Viola. Dear. We’ve been through this countless times. Listen. The poof in the air is easier to handle. For everybody. And it’s certainly a lot less paperwork.”

  Her eyes shot around the mess in his apartment as if this could help her decipher what lay behind this behaviour. But no clues sparked any conclusion.

  She had come here because she trusted him. At least as much as she was capable of trust.

  “At least I have my priorities sorted out. What about you?” he lashed out at her, out of nowhere.

  “Meaning?”

  “You tell me. Cause I’ve watched you beat this horse with a sledgehammer. To a pulp. For how many years? And why? Why do you care? Listen, Viola, you want help? Want a missing woman? I can find you one a lot less... complicated.”

  Viola got up and began to walk out of his apartment. She had already been a basket case before she walked in there. She had hoped to find some allegiance, but instead found someone in worse shape than her.

  “I would settle for a man who cares.” She spat the words out at him. She was about to slam the door open when he extended his foot to prevent the door from opening any further. That got her attention, all right. And frightened the hell out of her.

  “Wrong time and address,” he said.

  “Sorry. Had you mistaken for someone else.”

  Then she ripped the door open and raced outside. And as she whirred down the endless flight of stairs, her mind attempted, in vain, to regain its bearings.

  Chapter 5

  Afternoon

  The subway was full. Viola’s breathing grew more desperate by the second. She knew she couldn’t go on like this for much longer. She couldn’t stand these people, or her situation.

  The last two years had been so by the book. Under control, just as she expected of her life. After her breakdown, shortly after Markus, she had done some grim therapy sessions. The luxurious retreat had cost way more than she could afford at the time. But her mother was more than happy to pay for her daughter’s well-being. After all, it was either that or be forced to reveal a failure in the family.

  And Anne didn’t accept anything less than success in her life. So, Viola spent two months outside of Tromsø in the northern part of Norway, cut off from pretty much everything that made her happy, just to make her mum happy. And as a side-effect, she pleased everyone else, especially the doctors. The breakdown was just a coincidence. A sudden blip on the radar that would never show up again. Anne was happy that Viola seemed stable. Or at least could fool the experts into thinking this was the case.

  Still, the retreat had not been all that bad. It helped her to regain some much-needed distance from herself. It had also taught her some basic meditation techniques. She was never much into spirituality or New Age thinking. Her mind was way too pragmatic to even consider going down that road. But the basic meditations had done wonders for her. And ever since then, she had used five minutes each morning to slow down, be fully present, and focus on her breath. Simple everyday mindfulness.

  Now, as she stood in the cramped subway, choking on the lack of air, she attempted again to focus on her breathing. And what usually worked wonders, did nothing for her. On the contrary, she got even more agitated, bordering on delirious.

  When she was finally prepared to push herself towards a premature exit, something caught her eye. A boy’s profile standing sideways to her. Perfectly curly blond hair and that nice rounded chin.

  It looked just like him.

  Markus.

  Viola blinked once, twice. And the more closely she looked at him, the more she became mesmerised by every single detail of his features.

  Viola began to push herself towards him. Shouldering everybody in order to reach the boy. And he was just standing there, all by himself. All alone.

  Maybe it was Markus.

  After all, it would make sense. He could have gotten lost. And, somehow, he was taking this subway, maybe he was even looking for her. Hoping to find his mother again.

  She pressed on, elbowed her way through, and when she finally reached him, he spun around towards her. A flash of recognition passed through her body. His ethereal face looked right into her eyes.

  Of course.

  It was Markus.

  It all made sense now. Him being here, finding him, a miracle. And everything that followed was just joy. The feeling of the boy’s soft hand against her callous palm. The trustful exchange of glances between them. And she realised all this suffering she’d had to endure wasn’t for nothing. No. It was just so she could find him. Right here, right now. As their eyes met, she understood he was just as alone and lost as she had been.

  But at this moment, nothing would ever come between them again. And nothing would force her to let go of his hand.

  As she drew him out of the subway, Viola suddenly felt a woman’s hand lash at her back. The woman’s fingers wrenched at her coat, and her eyes glared with a blistering accusation.

  Viola thought the subway stations gathered all kinds of crazies. And this woman had to be one of them. So, she shielded her Markus, and decided to make a run for it. She had to get him to safety.

  But she had barely made it across the platform when words finally pierced through her clouded mind.

  “What the fuck, Lady! What the hell are you doing with my son?” the woman shrieked at Viola. And this time she ripped the boy away from Viola’s hand. Viola peered into the kid’s face.

  Not Markus.

  Not Markus.

  Other accusations followed. Lots of nasty words were thrown at her. Unintelligible, toxic threats of police and other grim consequences. Stuff she knew she couldn’t deal with.

  So, she made a run for it. And as she escaped, her senses were covered by a dense fog.

  Chapter 6

  Late Afternoon

  Viola barely had the time to connect to Aftenposten’s news server before Anne came running for her. She had expected to face her mother as soon as she walked into the offices, but she didn’t expect her to show up with such urgency.

  Anne had always been a pedantic control freak. But Viola couldn’t decide if this was an ability necessary to survive as the chief editor or simply bad leadership.

  Few remembered it more clearly than Silje Bredtvet, who had voiced her opinion clearly on several things concerning Aftenposten’s runnings. And why shouldn’t she, she had been the managing editor at that time. Everyday operations had been her sole responsibility. And although she answered to Anne only, Silje had a much clearer idea of Aftenposten’s mechanics than Anne did.

  Silje had worked almost as long as Anne in the business. And she thought she had the clout to have an opinion of her own. Especially since she was Anne’s best friend and most trusted confidant for close to twenty years. And at that time, she fought for something worth fighting for. Silje’s concerns were mostly legitimate, with some precise solutions for updating the paper technologically, moving into the next decade. Only Anne didn’t see it as an opportunity, but as a power move to dethrone her.

  No one was really sure what happened afterward, but Silje resigned a week later. The reason given was serious health issues. Maybe the story would have been somewhat credible, if not for the fact that Silje applied to several other papers shortly after this. But for some unexplained reason she was unanimously turned down. Her career finished a couple of years before retirement. And Silje never recovered after this. />
  Viola had a good relationship with Silje, whom she had always respected deeply. She even visited her once, after everything cooled off. But the broken woman Viola saw that day made it unbearable to keep returning to her. No matter how much Viola thought of herself as a person fighting the good cause, when she got near Silje she realised she could just as easily end up like her.

  Mother or no mother, Anne was more than capable of doing this to her own daughter. Viola knew that, and so did everyone else. And as an addendum to the whole story, a few years later, Anne made all the changes to the paper Silje had suggested, but dressed them up as her own ideas.

  “I see you are prepared for the trip.” Anne’s words were tinged with sarcasm as she eyed Viola’s messy desk. This was Anne’s default modus operandi. Nothing out of the ordinary or to be scared of. So why did Viola’s knees suddenly feel weak?

  All would have been fine. Viola would have been packed and ready to go to the Middle East. She loved her job, and she was prepared to do anything for the paper. But that was two days ago. And now she felt as if some invisible force had begun to rearrange her neurons into some new configuration.

  She felt every inch of her body telling her she should speak to her mother about this. Voice her doubts. Yes. This time she would talk to her. Despite the past, this maddening family-professional relationship, and despite what Anne had done to Silje.

  Viola glanced at her mother and touched her arm gently. She was not quite sure why she did it.

  “Cleared your desk, dear?” Anne’s tongue pressed hard at the word ‘dear’.

  “Can we talk?” Viola immediately sensed she might just as well have said she was not going to Damascus.

  “Talk? Now? We can. Sure. When you get there. On the phone.” Viola knew that if she didn’t speak up about her feelings now, things would only get worse. Her only hope left was to appeal to the business side of their relationship.

  “That’s exactly what I wanted to talk about. For the good of the paper?” she said, but Anne’s reaction was exactly the opposite of Viola’s intention. She sensed this appeal was like hanging up a big red sign that read: I am in trouble.

  Anne eyed her daughter, her calculative mind speeding through the possible worst-case scenarios.

  “It’s that Stine woman from yesterday, isn’t it?” whispered Anne. Viola knew that however self-focused Anne was, her mother had a very firm grasp on reality. So, this insight came as no surprise.

  “Come on! Of course not.”

  “Listen, girl, the only thing you have to worry about is that I won’t be paying for yet another retreat to get you back in shape. Like the last time, huh? That was a one-time deal only. Right?” Anne closed in on her daughter, not out of considerate intimacy, but like a predator hunting its prey.

  “Since when did my mental condition become a topic?”

  “Since you dropped out of the most expensive two-month rehab after Markus’s death,” Anne spat out at her, and it amazed Viola how this woman could so completely crush another person with simple words and still maintain her own peace of mind.

  “Which you have nothing to do with. Understand?”

  “Which I have everything to do with,” Anne insisted, but then she hesitated over her next line of attack. And this could only spell trouble.

  “Especially since you’ve been lying to your partner about your... condition.”

  Viola’s forehead exploded with heat, and her vision blurred. With her heart racing like mad, and her knees popping under the stress, she scrambled to regain some kind of composure.

  Anne had crossed an unspoken line. One that Viola had been sure would never be broken. Especially not by her own mother. Viola’s condition was her own. She had made that clear fifteen years ago. And if one thing was understood in their relationship, it was that Viola’s disease was never mentioned.

  “Well... I... Do you even have the faintest idea...? You realise how hard it is to tell someone that you will...”

  Cripple his children.

  “Cripple his children.” That’s what Viola meant to say. But these words failed her. Instead, they reverberated back and forth in her head, as if in some maddening echo chamber.

  Viola glanced at her mother. Defenceless and numb, she fell silent.

  “So, you’ve found the perfect solution? Moving with him to the other side of the world? Leading him on about a family? That’s going to make things better?”

  Viola had sensed Anne’s building resentment for quite a long time. She hated the choices Viola had made in her life. She just never had the right opportunity to voice it. Until now.

  “The least the poor guy deserves is the truth about Markus, and your...” Anne suddenly stopped short, perhaps that little remaining part of her that still cared about her daughter was rearing its head. Even she knew this might be too much.

  “My...? My what! You fucking dare say it,” Viola blew up in Anne’s face. She hadn’t spoken to her mother like that for a long time. If ever.

  Viola searched desperately for any justification that would excuse her mother. Some misunderstanding, the job at stake, too much stress, or even a bad day. But no matter how she looked at this, however much she tried to find a reason to forgive Anne, there was only one conclusion: her mother was a heartless bitch.

  “Never. Ever. Mention Markus or my condition again. Not to Ronny. Or anyone fucking else. Clear?”

  Anne saw Viola’s surface was cracking.

  “Sorry. I am sorry. Please...” Anne whispered the words. And in some kind of unexplained gesture, she gripped Viola’s shoulders. Then, she hugged Viola to herself.

  But the only thing going through Viola’s mind was that Anne never hugged. Certainly not at work. A big part of her wanted to scream at Anne. Had her motherly instincts finally woken up after twenty years?

  Anne did her best to calm Viola down by stroking her hair, then slid close to her ear.

  “Listen, hon, you do your part. Okay? Which means no rehabs. But an amazing performance in the Middle East. Right? And I think what you and Ronny have is way too precious, huh? Would be a shame to involve him any further. Yes?” Anne delivered her message and locked gazes with Viola.

  Had she heard her mother wrong, or was that an outright threat? Viola’s mind reeled from the words. Her eyes darted around the room in horror. She wanted to shriek. She wanted to flail at her mother. She was prepared to gut-punch her own flesh and blood.

  But instead, she did the only thing she could.

  She nodded submissively.

  Late evening

  Viola’s feet still carried her along the rain-splashed sidewalk, long after what she thought was physically possible.

  She had known this day would come. But she never realised it would come in such a brutal manner. The day her mother used Viola’s condition against her.

  Ever since her disease became known to her mother, they’d had a truce. Despite all that Anne was, Viola thought her mother cared enough about her to respect this boundary. It was never spoken out loud. Simply a sign of respect, a family understanding. So, when it happened today, something broke in her. In their relationship.

  Viola had found out about her mitochondrial disease when she was in her mid-twenties. But it had taken the doctors almost a decade to pinpoint this as the root cause of everything. By that time, she was already a nervous wreck and on all kinds of pills. Every benzodiazepine, antidepressant, and beta-blocker became game. If there was anything to try, she would do it.

  During those ten years, she had gone through countless doctors, specialists, and a living hell of misdiagnoses.

  The real story started in her early twenties, after a sudden miscarriage. At that time, she barely understood the implications this would have on her life. In those days, she was a fountain of optimism, bursting with life and ready to take on everything that came her way. A miscarriage was a shock. Painful as hell. But bad things never happened to her. This was a one-time thing. She would get back on her feet in no
time.

  But she never did.

  After half a year of stuffing Clomid, a fertility drug, down her throat, with CNC machined precision for intercourse, and then intrauterine inseminations, she had no further success. The only thing that seemed to be growing were the side effects of blurred vision, head-splitting migraines, and vivid nightmares; her follicles were not.

  Suddenly, she realised artificial insemination was the only option she had. Fortunately, three rounds would be covered by the Norwegian Health Service. Surely this extraordinary gift would save her from financial ruin.

  But after six gruelling IVF procedures, three of the cycles paid for out of her own pocket, she was not only emotionally ruined but was also in serious debt. Something that would take her the next decade to repay. As the years went by, everything was turned inside out in her emotional life. Not only did she lose her partner, who couldn’t deal with her condition, but everyone in her circle slowly pulled away from her.

  Or was she the one who pulled away from them? That detail remained quite fuzzy. Nevertheless, the outcome was a socially barren life. And that had suited her just fine. It still did.

  Her attitude towards life had turned from a careless bystander to a drowning victim. In no less than seven years. But that was far from the end of the story. Despite her unpaid mortgage and her overdrawn credit cards, she went from specialist to specialist in the hope of finding some new procedure that would give her hope again.

  And what did she get in return? She got a brutal kick by fate right in the gut. She won the damned lottery. She learned she was 1 in 15,000 who had one of the rarest diseases in existence. Mitochondrial disease.

  The bitter irony of it all was that with this disease, every procedure she had been through had been utter nonsense. Even if she could conceive, the chances the baby would be healthy were close to nil. She learned from the same experts who had put her in financial debt that the IVF procedures were actually the last thing she should be doing.