IT WAS NOVEMBER WHEN I MET HELENA the first time. I got to her house in the afternoon and a mere hour later it was pitch-black outside. The darkness made it seem as if we’d been sitting there for a long time, deep in conversation.

That time I assumed that she and Olga had lived in their apartment for many years, a lifetime, but I came to learn that they had only just moved back to Sweden, that they hadn’t been in Stockholm for more than a year, and I realized that the feeling of belonging I’d sensed in the apartment—not coziness exactly, but specifically a sense of belonging—was not the result of yearslong habits but rather Helena’s apparently innate ability to take possession of every place she set foot.

The apartment smelled of toast and garlic. Helena’s perfume was in the coats and scarves in the hall, like she’d been marking her territory.

They’d moved from London around Christmas. Olga had done a spring semester at a school in the city, within walking distance from the apartment, but it didn’t “work,” a word Helena pronounced with scare quotes and no further explanation. Then, in the fall, she’d started another new school, a boarding school, a concept I thought sounded cruel and anachronistic. They’d chosen it because of its international profile. That didn’t “work” either. Helena said: my daughter doesn’t like school. She’d thought boarding school would suit Olga better; there were students speaking all kinds of languages there, students from all over the world, but it was no use, something to do with the school’s culture, issues with the other students, girls who’d cover their stalls with towels when they showered, all that intimacy was too much, living with your classmates.

As Helena was speaking I pictured the book about Thérèse and Isabelle. I pictured a very old school: dormitories, wrought-iron beds, brick buildings, a place that looked more like my idea of an old sanatorium or prison than any of the schools I had attended.

Olga made no friends. Olga became depressed. Olga developed strange phobias, for instance a fear of biking, she was scared of skidding and dying on the rural gravel roads north of Stockholm. You couldn’t get ahold of her anymore. She didn’t pick up her phone. Helena called her several times a day, and every time Olga didn’t respond Helena thought she was dead, she called and she called and was consumed by fear that transformed first into anger and then relief once Olga finally responded—always by text, never with a call, and Helena loathed texting. But at least she was in a safe place. Better than in the city, where there were too many things that could happen, too many people; Helena no longer trusted Olga, everything was different now that she was getting older, in the past Olga was always following her around like a shadow, she was so sweet. A school photo was stuck to the fridge, the first picture I saw of her, the school uniform, her shorn head; Helena told me about the hair she’d shaved off, she couldn’t let go, Olga’s long hair, her thick hair, Helena said: the kind of hair anyone would dream of, but she didn’t want it, you know how it is, some fast while others starve.

I didn’t like Olga then. I felt like she was putting on airs.

You’ve got to give it time, Helena said, she’s used to more bohemian environments, and I felt a quiver of hate run over my skin. I thought I could become Helena’s daughter, Olga’s proxy, a better version of her, one much more worthy of love.

But that was later. The first time I met Helena I knew very little about her life. I was there to do an interview.