Page 84 of The One Day You Were My Husband
As I turn onto the scrubby winter grass of Johan’s land, there’s a car leaving. My heart jumps to my throat for a moment, but it’s just the last guest, a woman of retirement age in a station wagon. She opens her window as we pass.
“Förlåt! Jag skulle precis skaffa barnens våtdräkter—” she begins, but changes swiftly to English when she sees my apologetic expression. “Sorry. I just came to get a kid’s wet suit,” she says. “I hope that is OK? My son said the guests don’t have children…?”
My breath catches in my throat.
“I…I do have children, but they aren’t…”
I watch her face change. She whips off her glasses to stare at me.
“Carrie?”
I stare back, stricken. This cannot be happening. Johan told me the place was entirely empty, yet here is his mother. My long hair, now with lighter streaks, didn’t trip her up for a moment.
“Kerstin,” I say. My voice falters. “I—I’m so sorry, I didn’t expect to see you. Or…anyone.”
His mother stares at me. She has aged a great deal since I saw her last, perhaps unsurprisingly. Her hair is still long but it’s entirely white,and her elegant hands are now snarled and bent at the wheel. Her face, deeply lined, is still attractive as it always was, and in it I see Johan clearly.
She doesn’t reply. She just covers her mouth with a hand, visibly disfigured by rheumatoid arthritis, and then closes her eyes, leaning her head back on the headrest.
I don’t know what to say or do, so, quietly, I just say, “I know.”
After a long time, she opens her eyes. “What are you doing here?” she asks. “Does Johan…did he…are you two in contact? He let you stay here?”
Reluctantly, I nod. “We bumped into each other a few weeks ago, while I was at a business event in the city. We aren’t really in touch, we just exchanged a few messages…Kerstin, I’m sorry. This must be very unsettling for you.”
She shakes her head lightly, as if asking me to stop talking.
“I’m happily married,” I say into the silence. My relationship with Robin feels like the only thing on my side right now. “I have two kids.”
“Keep away from Johan,” she says, turning to me. Those sharp blue eyes have not aged, even though the rest of her has suffered. “Carrie. I mean it, keep away. Johan and Freja are very happy. But he still has healing left to do. You must leave him alone.”
She sayswerry, and for a moment I am plunged back into those heady first days when I was learning Johan’s voice, his body, his unique Johan worldview. I remember him explaining to me about how theWsound was a common overcorrection for Swedish people who speak advanced English, and I wanted to listen to his voice every moment for the rest of my life.
“Carrie.” Kerstin’s voice is stronger. “Turn around and drive home. You should not be staying here. There are hundreds of summer houses you can rent.”
She’s right. But this is triggering something; a small fire of defiance is building.
“You should go,” she adds, as if I didn’t hear the first two times.
“Why are you speaking to me like this?” I ask. My voice is clear and firm. It’s the voice I used when I was running an operating theater. “Why the hostility, Kerstin?”
She turns off her car engine.
“And while we’re on the subject. Why the hostility back then, when Johan was imprisoned? Why was Ialwaysheld at arm’s length? I did nothing other than love your son. Nothing.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” Kerstin says. She won’t even look me in the eye.
“What happened to Johan destroyed me. I let him go, because he gave me no choice, but it smashed my life to pieces. And I still don’t even know what happened, because none of you had the courtesy, or indeed the kindness, to tell me.”
Kerstin shifts away from her car window, suddenly alarmed, and it’s only then that I realize I am halfway out of my car, as if preparing for a physical confrontation. But she collects herself quickly. I remember her doing this before, in Bangkok. She rolls her shoulders back ever so slightly and says, “Carrie. Please do not play the innocent victim.”
“All I did was love your son!” My voice is too loud. “What on earth do you mean,please don’t play the innocent victim?”
Kerstin holds up a hand as if to sayStop.
I do stop shouting, but I’m not done. “I did everything in my power to help him. And my mother did the same. She walked out of her job and flew to Thailand to try to help get him out. So what, exactly, is your problem with me?”
“My problem is your mother,” Kerstin snaps. “Yes, she tried to helpJohan. But she would never have had to step in if she had not got Johan into trouble in the first place.”
