Slowly We Die. Emelie Schepp
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Jana said.
“And I’m sorry to bother you now, but I’m just wondering where Margaretha is...?” Elin said. “She always leaves a note on the kitchen table if she is going somewhere. When we came home early this morning from the overnight stay at the rehabilitation center in Örebro early, she wasn’t here. I was surprised and there wasn’t a note. I called her cell, but...”
Jana looked at her. “How long have you been taking care of my father?”
“Since he came home from the hospital. Your mother hired me because she was feeling overwhelmed. I work twenty-four-hour days.”
“So how well do you know Karl?”
“Well, I take care of his physical needs,” she said. “But I don’t know much beyond that.”
“I want your objective opinion. I need to know exactly how he’s doing and what his prognosis is.”
Multiple wrinkles appeared on Elin’s forehead as she took off her glasses and polished them on her knitted cardigan.
“Karl has made considerable progress in recent weeks,” she said.
“And what about the future?”
“That I can’t say. You’d of course have to ask his doctors.”
Jana picked up the stack of papers, tapping it twice against the desk.
“But do you think he might make a full recovery?”
Elin sighed and put her glasses back on.
“I imagine it’s going to be a long and difficult rehabilitation for him, but I’m seeing distinct improvements all the time. Just a week ago, he couldn’t get out of his wheelchair without help. This morning he not only got out of it, but took a few steps all by himself.”
“So the answer is yes?”
“Look, it’s very difficult to say for sure, but if everything goes well, he should eventually be able to walk in the garden here.”
“And his speech?”
“He will need to work on that regularly, too. Every day. He needs that stimulation in order to learn to speak again,” she said. “And it’s important that family members help as much as they can.”
“I can’t come here that often,” Jana said.
She walked around the desk, past Elin.
“Then your mother will have to bear a heavy load. My contract is only for two more months.”
Jana froze.
“I’ll renew the contract if you will take full responsibility for his rehabilitation. Is that acceptable?”
Elin nodded yes.
“Good,” Jana said. “And one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Tell Father that his wife is dead.”
* * *
Anneli Lindgren stood on the staircase landing and raised her hand to knock. It felt odd standing there like a stranger outside her own front door. She unzipped her jacket as she waited and ran her hand down over her shirt in an attempt to smooth out any wrinkles that had formed over the course of the day.
Gunnar opened the door but wouldn’t look directly at her. He hadn’t last time, either.
“It’s all in the bedroom,” he said, leaving the door ajar as he walked back into the kitchen.
She noticed the odor of fried food and saw an empty frying pan on the stove. A jar of lingonberry jam and two empty plates sat on the kitchen table.
“Don’t you use the hood vent?” she asked.
“There are six boxes,” he said, ignoring her question and putting the lid back on the jam jar. “They’re right by the door.”
“Does Adam know I’m here?”
“Adam!” Gunnar yelled at the top of his lungs.
“Well, he certainly does now!” Anneli said, smiling in an attempt to lighten the tense atmosphere.
But Gunnar didn’t smile. He didn’t say anything. She felt her cheeks begin to flush, and she shifted uncomfortably.
“I guess I’d better get started,” she said.
“Yes, do,” he said.
As she went toward the bedroom, she noticed how unkempt the apartment was. The bathroom faucet was dripping. In the living room, the remote control had been tossed onto the floor, with the batteries alongside.
The boxes were stacked up next to the closet. Four in one stack, two in another. The first box hardly weighed anything; it was probably only light clothes. The second was heavier, and she was panting by the time she got it to the car.
She didn’t want these boxes, actually. She didn’t need what was in them and felt annoyed that neither Gunnar nor their son, Adam, offered to carry them to the car for her.
She stopped to catch her breath and rested her hand against the cold car window. Closing her eyes, she felt the chill spread through her fingers.
A voice inside her blamed herself: It was your fault! All of it was your fault!
She knew it was. If only she hadn’t given in to Anders that time.
It was still her own damn fault. She had been cheating on Gunnar, and now she had to move out of his condo. It wasn’t the first time she and Gunnar had lived apart. Actually, she couldn’t count how many times they had separated and then gotten back together again. The one thing she could be sure of was that they had been together on and off for twenty years. The other thing she could be sure of was that she had screwed up big-time.
She had thought it would be easy to find a new place to live, but the housing market had heated up. Condos were hard to come by, and rentals were in high demand. It had never been so difficult just to rent a place.
She hadn’t dreamed she would have to call her mother and ask if she could live with her, even temporarily. Sure, she’d done this before—but that was when she was twenty years old, maybe twenty-two.
Now she was fifty-four.
Her son, Adam, was waiting for her in the hallway after she stuffed the last box in the car.
His skin was broken out in acne, and his bangs were combed to the side, covering his entire right eye. A white headphone cord hung around his neck, his cell phone in his right hand.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said wearily and walked past her.
“Bye!” she called into the apartment, but all she received in response was silence.
She walked down two steps but then stopped, thinking she should go back and say something, explain to Gunnar that it wasn’t really fair, that this was her home, too. She should be able to stay.
She wanted to stay, to start over, forget her misstep and move on from it.
“Mom?” Adam’s voice echoed in the stairwell. He was standing a few steps below her and was holding one headphone out from his ear, looking at her questioningly.
“Are you coming?”
“I’m coming.”
She sighed, cast one last glance at what was no longer her front door and continued down the stairs.
* * *
Jana Berzelius crossed the street and continued on to the narrow lanes of the Knäppingsborg shopping district. The shop windows displayed a crowded jumble of hand towels, pillows and cookware decorated with branches and leaves, featuring every imaginable shade of blue and green.
Upon entering her apartment,