Elise Edvardsen had hurled a few more caustic remarks at her daughter before going to bed for the night. She didn’t know why she was always so sarcastic. She didn’t think of herself as malicious, and yet she couldn’t hold back. She nagged her sixteen-year-old daughter about all sorts of trivial things. It might be about a test that didn’t go well at school, or clothing she had bought that her daughter refused to wear. “So H&M isn’t good enough for you anymore? I don’t know how a daughter of mine could turn out to be such a snob.”
The way the teenager smacked her chewing gum really pissed her off. “Do you really need to sound like a walrus drowning in its own spit?” Why did she say such absurd things? They hardly ever had a normal conversation anymore. And yet, they’d once been so close. Even Julie’s singing annoyed Elise lately. It always woke her up. But not this morning.
All night she’d drifted in and out of dreams that were weighted with so many different thoughts. She had been arguing with Ivar, Julie, and herself about the strangest things, like Internet fees and the need for sunscreen during Easter vacation. It was odd to wake up to a silent house. Ivar breathed quietly beside her, almost as if he were making an effort not to disturb. She looked at his pale nose sticking out at the edge of the duvet. His nostrils flared and constricted with a calculated calm. She found it terribly irritating.
The bedroom door stood open, just as it always did. They had gotten into the habit of leaving the door ajar when Julie was little because she used to climb into their bed at night. And they’d never given up the habit. Right across from their bedroom was the bathroom, and that was where the sound should be coming from. Elise should have heard Julie singing behind the closed door, like she always did in the morning. She remembered when waking up to that song had been the best thing in the world.
She got up and thought back on last night. Julie had shown her an expensive pair of pants that she’d bought, and even though Elise knew her daughter had spent her own allowance on them, she’d still called her a stupid teenage diva. She could have said it like she was joking, but she hadn’t. She had meant the words to hurt. They’d slipped out, and Julie hadn’t replied. She’d just turned on her heel, put Bismarck on his leash, and left for their evening walk.
That had opened Elise’s eyes. I can’t keep on this way, she thought. So she had crept into bed alongside Ivar, who was already asleep. I’m a terrible mother, she had whispered to him as he dreamed. He had merely grunted and kept on sleeping. So Elise had lain in bed, listening for the door, the humming in the hallway, the dog shaking the snow off his coat. But she had fallen asleep before Julie came back.
But I was awake for a long time, wasn’t I? she thought now.
She went into the hall and opened the bathroom door. Everything was just as she’d left it last night. No towels or dirty clothes tossed on the floor. And the top was on the toothpaste tube.
Without thinking, she went to the front door and pulled it open, staring out at the yard. It was not yet daylight. The frosty vapor issuing from her mouth made the world seem hazy, and she stood there, peering vacantly into the white space between the big trees.
Then out of old habit she looked down and found the newspaper lying on the doorstep. She read the front-page headline, which was about that awful thing that had happened on Ludvig Daaes Gate. It had shocked the whole neighborhood. For two days afterward she had forbidden Julie to go out alone after dark. But her daughter had refused to obey, which led to more arguments. So Elise had finally relented, though with a bad feeling in her stomach.
With a rising sense of alarm she went into the kitchen. The counter was clean, without a single crumb on it. In the living room, Bismarck wasn’t sprawled on his pillow. For a moment she stood there, motionless, as if it were a great effort to draw a breath. Slowly, taking off-tempo steps, she went over to her daughter’s bedroom. It was at the other end of the living room. An idiotic question suddenly occurred to her: Why did they sleep so far apart? For a moment she wondered if she were going crazy. Then she thought, This is just a dream. A horrible nightmare.
She stood outside her daughter’s bedroom door for what seemed like a long time. Then she gathered her courage and opened the door.