A Modern Family

by Helga Flatland

  I’ve dreaded seeing Simen with Magnus’s one-year-old son more than anything else, and it is just as painful as I’ve anticipated when Simen picks him up and lifts him high in the air, arms straight, smiling at him. The natural way he holds him afterwards, balancing him on one hip as he talks to his mum. Simen’s face when the baby is eventually placed in my lap and when I move him to the end of my knee, all too aware of Simen’s expression – can’t have the little one too close to me, can’t bear to smell his baby smell. Even so, I feel I have something to prove, but before I have a chance to pull him any closer, he bursts into tears and scans the room frantically for his mother, just a few metres away, indignant at having been dragged away from the soft, natural embrace of his Uncle Simen and placed in the arms of someone who must feel like a cold, mechanical robot.

  ‘I think someone wants their Mummy,’ I say to Synne without looking at the baby’s forlorn expression, and I do my best to laugh.

  ‘Yes, he gets very impatient when he’s hungry, he’s a little too accustomed to getting his own way,’ Synne replies with a smile, looking like any other attentive mother doing her best to erase any notion that the fault might lie with the other person; a habitual, natural reaction to alleviate any concern on the part of the awkward, childless person who may well have been responsible for the child’s tears.

  He stops crying as soon as he feels Synne’s body against his own, and I wonder what that must feel like, to have that effect on someone, to be so important, so crucial, so naturally connected. To be the only thing that helps, the only thing that matters.

  Neither Simen’s dad, his mum, Magnus nor Synne mention the fact we don’t have children, or that we ought to start trying before too long, or ask if we plan on having any, or comment on the fact that time is marching on, and so on and so forth, they don’t even get as far as hinting at it. That, in itself, is more alarming than if they had probed or joked about the situation, because the absolute silence on the subject testifies to the fact that they’ve either discussed it prior to our arrival, making their own assumptions and agreeing not to bring it up – for whatever reason – or that they’ve taken it for granted that it won’t be me providing them with the next grandchild or cousin to join the family. I do my best to suppress the worst, most paranoid thought to enter my mind, the fact that Simen might have informed them about what’s been going on, that he might have explained the problem – me – and asked them not to say anything.

  Last year, at New Year, as Simen and I had dinner with a pair of friends in New York, we summed up our year. It’s surreal to think only twelve months have passed since then, surreal to think that an entire decade hasn’t gone by since that point. The change in Simen and me is so striking, so tangible I can describe it: it is an abyss of detachment, of bloody disappointments; the image of what our future would look like, of what our relationship would look like; the transformation between us, everything that’s come to a standstill, everything we choose not to talk about, all the desire that has disappeared, an alienation of body and mind. That would be how I would sum up our year, everything piled up there in the abyss, but I can’t bring myself to fish any of it out, I keep any thoughts of past and future at bay, focusing only on existing in the here and now, eating turkey, talking about the subjects of interest to Simen’s family: Norwegian education policy, the rise in property prices, what Brexit means for us in Norway. I get by better that I’d expected I might – it would have been an enjoyable occasion, had it not been for the sheepskin-lined oak cradle positioned in the corner of the room, a constant reminder.

  Simen and I toast at midnight, kissing dutifully as the fireworks above us vanish in the misty sky, Happy New Year. Happy New Year, I don’t know if Simen even dares to hope for such a thing, if he still has it in him, or if the only thing he longs for now is to get away, hoping deep inside that our attempts will prove unsuccessful. But within me I feel a tiny glimmer of hormonal hope flare up with the contrived transition from one year to the next.

  I have been pregnant, is all I can think on the third occasion that I find myself lying there, staring up at the ceiling in the hospital, while the same nurse, dressed head-to-toe in green, makes one final attempt to encourage a tiny, fused mass of Simen and me to acknowledge that my womb might be a suitable place for life to begin.

  It’s been five months, one failed attempt and one miscarriage since New Year’s Eve.

  My God, is it true? Simen blurted when I showed him the positive test a month after our second implantation. How can you be so calm about it? How can you be so calm? he shouted, not sure what to do with himself, walking out onto the balcony, coming back inside, shit, he said, wrapping his arms around me, hugging me, kissing me. Then he sat at the dining table, looking almost resigned, leaning over and resting his head on his forearm. Shit, he repeated.

  I wrapped my arms around him from behind, leaned over him, my stomach touching his back. It was closer than we’d been for a year. It’s not that I feel calm about it, I said to the back of his head, it’s just so surreal, I can’t believe it. But it’s there, isn’t it? he seemed to ask, sitting upright and pointing at the three tests I’d laid out on the table. Each one of them showed a clear blue line. Three tests can’t be wrong, surely? he asked. No, they can’t, I said, without mentioning the fact that two more with the same result were lying in the bathroom bin. I need to pee, I told Simen, I’d drunk so much water over the course of the day that I could still feel the pressure of it on my lower abdomen – but finally, no longer convinced that I was kidding myself, I was able to believe that it might have something to do with the little life in the process of commencing within me. When I returned from the bathroom, Simen was still sitting at the table. It’s just… he began, then looked at me, stopped himself. He fell silent, reached out for me. I’d given up, he said, and was forced to swallow a sob. Honestly, I had, Ellen, he said, I took his hand and he squeezed it. Is that awful of me? I shook my head, of course not, I told him, I get it.

  The following night I was awoken by cramps, and still half-asleep I imagined myself to be giving birth, and I pushed with all my might to bring a plump, healthy baby into the world, while in reality, my body rejected an embryo with a tiny heart that had only just started beating.

  ‘Is someone coming to pick you up?’ the nurse asks me when she’s finished.

  I feel as if I’ve been laid out here a hundred times before, that this has become routine. The only difference on this occasion is that Simen isn’t here with me. Just go to your meeting, I told him a few days ago, it’s the same old same old, I said. Sure, but it feels weird not to be there at the point of conception, unnatural somehow, Simen replied. Everything about this process is unnatural, and anyway, it’s not conception, I said, unable to stop myself from raising my voice. You know that, conception has already occurred, it’s just a case of insertion, I continued. He raised his hands defensively. OK, as long as you feel alright about going by yourself, he said, before waiting to hear my response, quickly adding: Are you sure? I’m sure, I told him, and I meant it, because in spite of everything it was better going alone than feeling I was dragging Simen along to something he couldn’t face, drawing him down into something that was my problem, and mine alone. My challenge to face.

  ‘Yes,’ I lie to the nurse. ‘My husband is coming to pick me up.’

  I squint in the May sunshine outside the hospital as I wait for my Uber to arrive, vaguely recalling years gone by, the first foray into a beer garden on Schous plass with my girlfriends around this time of year, the vast ocean of time and priorities that was once at my feet.

  When I get home, I lie with my head at the foot of the bed, my legs resting up on the headboard. I know it’s nonsense, but it can’t hurt, nothing can hurt, nothing except beginning to hope again.

  He’s left all of his things behind. Even the tiny cactus he’s had since he first moved away from home sits firmly in its spot on the kitchen windowsill. I press two fingers against the tiny, white s
pikes, there’s disappointingly little resistance, it doesn’t hurt one bit. Pain is all relative, of course, I’ve come to understand that over the past few months.

  It’s not over, Simen said, that’s not what I’m saying. I just need a little space, I can’t breathe. Is that a metaphor? I reply, quiet, numb. It’s not, actually, last night I woke up to find myself hyperventilating, he replied. He hadn’t, I’d been awake all night myself, just as I had every other night these past few weeks. And the solution is to walk out? I ask him. It’s not a solution, he cried, don’t oversimplify things. I’m doing this for both of us. No, you’re not, you’re not doing this for me, you’re doing this to me, I said, my arms by my sides, I no longer had anything to lose. What do you want from me? Do you want us to carry on like this, nagging at one another until we eventually end up like your parents? he said. Better that, I thought to myself, better to have three children and a family, something to look back on, at the very least.

  I realise that I’m not wearing anything. I’m standing naked at the kitchen window, poking at a cactus, and I start to laugh as I look out at the building across from ours, then even more so at the fact I’m standing naked at the window and laughing at a cactus. I look up at the clock on the wall above the kitchen worktop; it’s five past seven, I need to be at the office in an hour. I take a shower, watching as clumps of my hair disappear down the plughole as I rinse out the shampoo. The only result of the hormone treatment has been to make me bald, I imagine myself saying to Simen as we sit in the kitchen drinking wine, and he laughs the way he always does when he feels sorry for me but sees humour in the situation all the same – you might not have ended up with a child, but you do get to bring a bald girlfriend home, that’s something to consider, I picture myself saying.

  I don’t know how long I spend in the shower, but my hands and feet are soft and wrinkled like those of a newborn baby when I emerge. I wrap my hair in a towel and dot face cream over my forehead and cheeks before massaging it into my skin, it targets and reduces fine lines, the jar claims. Over the past year I’ve developed vast endless wrinkles around my eyes. I fill them with primer, then tint the lilac rings with a yellow-toned concealer before applying a thick layer of diamond glow foundation over my entire face, star-reflecting powder, highlighter on my cheekbones, the bridge of my nose, my eyebrows, applying eyeliner to both eyes, mascara to my lashes, volumising lip gloss. I dry my hair, scrape it back in a tight ponytail, pull on my jeans, shirt and blazer, then check my reflection in the mirror. Isn’t it strange being with someone whose appearance is so transformed in the space of an hour in the bathroom in the morning? I asked Simen once as he sat on the lid of the toilet, watching me doing my make-up. Your appearance doesn’t change, you just become a different version of yourself – I sometimes wish it was OK for men to use make-up, I could go for a dramatic look one day if I felt like it, he replied, laughing. You’re well on your way to having your own hipster beard, though, that’s pretty dramatic, I said, pulling at his trim facial hair.

  I pull on my boots and jacket, run down the stairs and make it as far as the front door before remembering that I’ve been signed off on sick leave.

  Extremely reluctantly, as I said to the doctor, unwilling that it should be the case. I was informed by my manager that I should see someone after she claimed I’d had some sort of breakdown at the salad bar in the canteen. It’s not a breakdown, I told her as I sat in her office afterwards, it’s just a physical symptom. It felt that way, too, and still does whenever my diaphragm contracts without warning, forcing me to gasp for air, my nerves sending signals to my tear ducts, which have gone into overdrive producing no end of excess moisture these days, my back hunching over protectively, my knees giving way beneath me. Don’t underestimate the weight of what you’ve been through, the doctor said, before prescribing me Valium. I’ll take the prescription, but I’m not going to use them, I told the doctor. I’ve always looked upon the idea of relying on unnecessary medication as a form of defeat, that feeling having only increased following the failed course of hormone therapy. I think I’ve got cancer, I said, genuinely hoping that to be the case.

  I feel dizzy and sick as I make my way back upstairs to my flat. I suddenly can’t remember what I was on my way out to do, can’t recall what day it is or how long it’s been since Simen left; I seem to remember doing the exact same thing yesterday, and the day before that. I sit in bed with my MacBook on my lap, aimlessly surfing the net. I’ve turned off the autofill setting that used to lead me down a rabbit hole of baby forums and endless threads of tips and tricks and hope and despair.

  ‘Loneliness is the new epidemic’, one headline states. One in three young people feels lonely. Young people, as in nineteen years old, with everything ahead of them, a vast ocean of time and opportunity at their feet. I scroll down the page, feeling the desire to dole out some advice to Mina, seventeen, who’s copied a page from her diary and sent it in to the section of the news site aimed at teenagers, framing it as an opinion piece – hi Mina, I’m a thirty-eight-year-old girl, no, sorry, woman, and my seventy-year-old parents decided to get divorced last year, which shattered the frameworks that had obviously provided every prerequisite for intimacy and trust and sincerity in our family, and now we’ve grown distant and almost become strangers. Moreover, my boyfriend has just left me because I can’t have children, I’ll never know what it’s like to have a child of my own, I’ve lost touch with my friends amid my desperate and, yes, rather self-obsessed attempts to procreate, but trust me, Mina, the world is your oyster.

  The world is overpopulated, Håkon remarked during one conversation at Christmas, when Mum told us our cousin was expecting her sixth baby. Having children is pure egoism, he added. Of course it is, Liv replied, what else could it possibly be? But it’s biological, she said. Anyone who wants a child in this day and age should just adopt. It’s a win-win situation, Håkon replied. He almost always falls back on biology in any argument he makes, but over the past year his reasoning has lacked any kind of logic and coherence, and he no longer seems quite as certain as he once did.

  The only time Simen and I ever discussed adoption was the day that we found out I was actually pregnant, when we were able to discuss it without considering that it might become a reality for us. I can’t imagine having a child I can’t see myself in, a child who can’t see themselves in me, Simen said. I can’t imagine looking at them and not being able to recognise something of myself there, no glimpses of familiar features or personality traits. I think so much of what’s important between parents and children is to do with what we see of ourselves in them, without us even realising it, don’t you agree? It’s instinctive. You and your mum, for instance, he said, you’re virtually one and the same person. Sure, in terms of our appearance, I replied, but our personalities are very different. I think familiarity can be shaped, to a certain extent, I said, I think we attribute a lot to biology that’s really got more to do with our environment. You’ve no idea just how like your mum you really are, even in your mannerisms, Simen replied. That put an end to our conversation, but either way, Simen had made his point, and if I were being entirely honest with myself, it was a disturbing thought to find oneself responsible for an unknown child born of a stranger.

  That was then. Since the failure of our last state-financed insemination attempt, I’ve been open to everything I had ever previously rejected. The thought of adopting suddenly wasn’t as remote as it once had been, it seemed more and more obvious, a win-win situation, I concluded in one long, desperate monologue to Simen who, for his part, was completely closed-off, exhausted. I can’t face talking about this now, Ellen, darling, can’t we just let it go, I’m so tired. I couldn’t let it go, I was desperate, I put forward any number of possible solutions, and beneath each of them lay the fear of what I knew was coming, don’t give up hope, Simen, please, don’t give up on me.

  I close the lid of my laptop. I don’t know what to do with myself, no space is small enough for me, no
space large enough, nowhere cool enough, nowhere quiet enough, nowhere loud enough; I have no one.

  I have no one.

  It’s the only new thought to enter my mind in the course of an unknown number of hours or days spent in bed. I’m dehydrated, I think to myself as I receive a message from Simen. I hope you’re OK, he writes, I know you’ll get through this, you’re strong, he writes in an unmistakeably conclusive tone. I feel nothing, numb, but my body contracts, my muscles working together, one, two, three, NOW, time to take hold. I break the seal on the Valium and take three.

  Håkon’s voice on the entryphone.

  ‘What the hell’s going on, Ellen?’ he says as he makes his way up through the stairwell, before he even catches sight of me. ‘I’ve tried calling you at least fifty times, I’ve been ringing your doorbell all day.’

  I can’t remember hearing the phone, or any ringing at the doorbell for that matter, I can only remember Simen’s message. He marches straight into the hallway before looking at me, furious with fear and relief, and I can tell from his reaction that I don’t look normal. Somewhere deep down in my consciousness I recall agreeing that he could come by to borrow the car for the day.

  ‘My God, what’s happened to you?’ he asks, grabbing me by the shoulders. I realise I’m still wearing my blazer.

  ‘Simen’s gone,’ I tell him.

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I try lifting my arms, but I don’t have the energy.

  ‘When did you last eat something?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Or have anything to drink?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not thirsty.’