28

Wednesday, 15 July

Day Twenty-four

Kate spotted the birthday bear sitting alone in front of his trailer, gazing at the night sky and drinking from the mug she’d gifted him that morning. Though he didn’t have to, Ben had used the mug all day.

She’d given it to him early, before breakfast. He’d smiled upon opening the bag, laughed, thanked her, and said it was perfect. She’d expected a hug, but his reaction remained professional. Acquaintance-like. Friends, but not hugging friends. And that was fine.

She was happy enough to have Ben as a friendly colleague. And, as a colleague, she hoped he’d appreciate her final gift, one she picked from the grocery store and strove to hide from him ever since.

Holding the gift behind her, Kate dragged her camping chair to sit beside Ben. “Mind if I join in your stargazing?”

He grunted, hopefully in assent. She kept the gift hidden in the shadows to her left on the grass. The trailer lights were out, the only light source near them coming from the house’s porch. The Milky Way swept above them, showing off.

Kate spotted a shooting star, then looked at Ben.

“You know,” she said, “I waited for someone to say something. Thought maybe they were waiting until dinner to bring out a cake. I remember, though, back when you turned twenty, you begged me not to say anything. So I didn’t. Jorunn and Alex and Erik all know, so I figured…staff party? Sadly, no. Nothing. Not a whisper.”

Ben was sipping from the bear mug, his gaze fixed on the sky, when Kate leaned toward him to present a perfect dandelion puff. He stared at it, then side-eyed her.

“Well, go on,” she said. “Make a wish.”

He cocked a brow.

She urged him once more to take the stem. “It was easier than buying a single candle. Or forty-three candles. Still, it’s something to blow out.”

Finally, he took the stem. After staring at the puff, he turned away and, with a great huff, unleashed the seeds. The weedlings floated to the ground, some not traveling far at all.

By the time he turned back to her, she’d already grabbed the main part of her gift from the ground and placed it on her lap.

He looked at it and cracked a smile. “Pie?”

She presented him with a fork. “Pie. Maple walnut, naturally. When in Canada… You’re not allergic to nuts, right?”

“Thankfully, no.”

“Good.” She popped off the plastic lid and set the aluminum dish on their adjacent camping chair arms. “I cut slices in case you didn’t want to gorge. But I’m in full support of however you would like to devour your birthday treat. As long as I get a taste.”

He sunk his fork into a slice and tasted the chunk. He leaned back against his chair with a contented sigh, then mumbled in Norwegian, followed by a soft, “Thank you.”

She shoved a big chunk of pie into her mouth.

Nearly half a pie later between them, he said, “I have to stop myself, or I will eat the entire thing.”

“It should keep for a few days.”

She snapped the plastic lid onto the dish, and he took the pie and his mug into the trailer. Across the camp, a guitar was strummed, then tuned. When Ben returned, he nudged his chair toward hers, the arms now overlapping.

Twangtwang, twang. Zoe tuned the strings again before crooning in French.

“Thank you,” Ben said. “That was perfect. And the mug. Truly.”

“It made me think of you. The mug, not the pie. Although you said you like pie, so I got that, too.”

He grinned. “We ate a lot of that pie.”

“And I am not one bit regretful of this. I can’t recall ever having maple walnut, so it was sort of for both of us.”

He rubbed his food-laden belly. She watched his hand, mesmerized. His belly was probably warm, fuzzy…

Shit, hell.

Kate turned her gaze to the stars. Ben would never guess what was on her mind if she stared at innocent stars.

“I shouldn’t be eating so much,” he said.

“Eh, it’s your birthday. Embrace the calories.”

He laughed, and Kate captured his smile with her mind’s camera.

Click.

—

Esben’s guilt at overeating had subsided somewhat, dimmed by Kate’s vibrant positivity. But no matter how hard he tried to block it, Lina’s voice remained in the back of his mind, berating him.

“But it’s true,” he said. “I know I eat too much now that I am not so active. I have never been so heavy. The weight does not want to come off. Lina says—” He stopped himself, unsure if now was the time to talk about this.

Curiosity widened Kate’s eyes. “Lina says what?”

His mouth hung open, fighting against his own reluctant words. But it was too late to take back what he had already said, and he owed Kate an explanation.

He sighed and, keeping his gaze on his hands, said, “That I am a bad influence on Frida.”

“Bad influence? Because you like to eat?”

“In part, yes.” He shifted in his chair, then sat up straight and said, “The problems began when Lina lost the baby.”

Kate said nothing, and when he looked up, her eyes were glistening with welling tears. He had to look away again lest he start crying, too.

He cleared his throat and continued. “Lina was in her second trimester. I wasn’t there. I was here for the first season of the field school. Two weeks from coming home.”

He had ached to comfort Lina, to hold her, to bear all the pain for her. He had wanted her to let it all out, cry on his shoulder, allow herself to be comforted and to comfort him in return. She could have screamed at him, yelled and blamed and cursed, as long as she did it in his arms and acknowledged that he was in mourning, too.

“We named him.” Esben looked up at the stars as he whispered, “Matteus.”

Kate grasped his forearm and whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

He tensed, gripping the arms of his chair. His hands ached. “It would have changed nothing had I been there, or had I checked my messages a few days before.”

‘I told you not to leave. Look what happened!’

“I came home, and she couldn’t look at me. For weeks, she cried, wouldn’t let me touch her, would not speak to me. And when she did, she screamed. She was upset that I was not with her when it happened but wanted to be alone.”

‘Don’t fucking touch me. Get away from me!’

“I knew this could happen to parents who lose a child. Fighting and such. I read about it. But Marit, my oldest sister, she had three miscarriages, one mid-term. And she and her husband are still together, happy.”

He shook out the tension in his arms.

“Lina became angry. All the time, angry. My job was not good enough. I did not make enough money. I loaded the dishwasher wrong. Always forgetting. Always the idiot. I was an unnecessary annoyance in her life.”

‘Did your mother teach you nothing? Fucking useless.’

“I began to eat a lot. At first, I was angry at her for being angry, for demanding, demeaning. Then I was sad, and I ate twice as much. I gained weight. Lina noticed. She made sure I knew she noticed.”

‘He’s getting so fat, like his father. It’s disgusting… No, not for a while… No risk of that—who would want him?… Oh, remember to bring the cakes for Dad’s birthday.’

“One night, I sat in my SUV. Had no plans to leave, but I needed out of the house, away from her. I listened to Ane Brun.”

Memories, yearning, regret.

“I was crying. The music was loud. Quiet music played loudly. I needed Lina out of my head.”

He turned to Kate, mouth quivering with the words he had longed to say for years. He dug his fingertips into his thighs and tried to read her expression. He couldn’t. But he said the words anyway.

“That night, listening to music, I thought of you. By the campfire. The warmth, the stars, the music, and…how you looked.”

There, in the music, a light buried in the distant past.

Kate’s brows furrowed. “At Helvetes Port?”

He nodded.

“The night of your birthday?”

He looked at the stars. “Thoughts of that night, with you there, the fire… They always calm me.”

‘What the hell are you doing? Hey, Esben! Heyyy!’

He winced at the memory of feeling broken in half. “Then Lina came shouting and banging on the window. I jumped. Something in my back snapped. The pain was…”

“Your lumbar herniation.”

“Yes. I couldn’t walk. Lina was forced to help me.”

‘You brought this upon yourself.’

“It took weeks to walk normally again. I gained weight. Added to what I had already gained. While I was recovering, almost bedridden, going to physical therapy, Lina barely spoke to me. She stayed out longer. Might have never come home were it not for Frida. I think she took a lover, but she never admitted this.”

He sighed out his anger.

“One night, we fought. Loud, long. Nasty things, we said. I didn’t mean any of it. I was still in love with her, and I couldn’t understand…” He breathed deep, willing the nausea to fade. “She hit me.” He rubbed the center of his chest. “So, I locked myself in the bathroom.”

Lina screaming and pounding on the door.

“When I saw myself in the mirror, it was not me in that reflection. It was a detestable thing. An inhuman thing. A thing my partner loathed and rejected.”

He looked at his right hand, clenched into a fist. Tight, tighter, arm trembling. Kate grasped his left forearm, and he closed his eyes.

Destroy what destroys you.

“I punched the mirror.”

Silver and red, glittering to the floor.

“I punched it, and I took a shard.”

A new pain to mute all others.

“I should have left. Should have…”

A smaller, frightened voice.

He slipped his hand over Kate’s. “I wasn’t thinking,” he said, voice barely a whisper. “I just wanted out.”

He was crying. He didn’t want to. Fuck, how much he did not. But his body quaked, and the tears came in great, heaving sobs.

He wanted to fall into himself, make himself small, escape all the bruises and cuts of the past. He wanted to disappear completely. But when Kate whispered his name and raised their trembling hands to kiss his curled fingers, when she pressed the back of his hand to her soft, tear-dampened cheek, he leaned into her, rested his forehead against hers, and let her in.

—

The revelation tore through Kate.

The thought of Ben dying, of him trying to take his own life… It was like being run through.

In her mind, she watched it happen; she couldn’t stop the images. He was there, on the tile amongst the mirror glass, crying, bleeding, dying. He was there, with her parents, shattered and gone.

Zoe sang about l’amour and le ciel, and Kate cried with Ben until the song shifted to an acoustic rendition of R.E.M.’s “Shiny Happy People.” Zoe’s crooning calmed Kate, and eventually, Ben’s shaking subsided. By the end of the song, their tears stopped, but their hands remained joined.

He wiped his face with his shirt. Composed, he led her fingertips to the underside of his left wrist and pressed down. Under the tip of her middle finger was a raised linear scar. When her fingertips grazed the old wound, he winced, and his entire body tensed. She quickly lifted her touch from the scar tissue to hold his hand again. His grip on her tightened, and she squeezed right back—she wasn’t going anywhere.

“That was two and a half years ago,” he said. “Some months later, Lina moved out, and I was better for it. This year, I got these tattoos. They were supposed to be healing for me.”

“What do they mean? The designs.”

He led her fingertips as he traced the design on his left forearm, the underside.

“This one,” he said of the compass, “is a guide. A map. To not be lost. To find what I have not had for years.”

He pressed her fingertips to his left wrist by the runic word ᛋᚴᛁᛅᛚᛏᚱ at the compass’s north. “Skjǫldr,” he said in an older tongue. “Shield. Protection.” He moved her fingertips inward from his wrist, northeast, to ᚠᚱᛁᚦᚱ. “Friðr,” he said. “Peace of mind.” Continuing clockwise, there was ᛋᛒᛅᚴᛁ, speki, wisdom, then followed ᚼᚢᚴᛦ, hugr, spirit or happiness. He then guided her to the runes nearest his elbow, ᛋᛏᛁᚱᚴᛦ, and scoffed. “Styrkr,” he said. “Strength.” When he moved her fingers clockwise again, he paused over the runes ᚬᛋᛏ. “Ást,” he whispered. “Love.” He took a slow, deep breath before continuing to ᛅᚢᚦᚱ, auðr, wealth, and finally ᚴᛁᛒᛏ, gipt, good luck.

Eight directions. Eight wishes. The tattoo masked the scar well. The scar was long, just the one line, spanning about a third of his forearm, starting just before the wrist. He could’ve bled to death; he was lucky to have full use of the hand.

“I designed it,” he said. “The other one as well.”

“You drew these?”

He nodded.

“They’re beautiful. And the other arm, Yggdrasil?”

“To ground me. Anchor me. Keep me here.”

She took in his sad eyes, his wet lashes. Though subtle, he was smiling. Hope buried under all that pain.

“It is for these things,” he said. “The eating, the anger and depression, and…” He looked at his left arm. “Lina says I am a bad influence. She cannot force Frida to stay away from me—she is old enough to decide for herself. But I have to wonder how much of these troubles with Frida is Lina telling her what to do and think. Even if it is not Lina’s doing, it is obvious: Frida does not want anything to do with me.”

Ben looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. But his grip on Kate was tight, and he leaned closer.

She touched his cheek and held his gaze, made sure of it, needing him to look her in the eyes.

“All of that, Ben, it doesn’t make you a bad influence.” She shook her head. “It makes you someone who needs love and support, not to be thrown aside.”

He sniffled, and his short fingernails dug into the flesh of her hand, but not enough to hurt.

The light at the house turned off. Zoe had since stopped playing her guitar, letting the crickets take over.

Kate wanted to pull Ben closer, to hold him, terrified that he’d vanish into the night sky should she let him go.

She checked her watch. The digital turquoise numbers glowed 11:58 pm.

“Shit,” she whispered. “It’s late. We should—”

“Yeah.”

They left their chairs where they were. At the trailer door, Ben turned to her and, voice quavering, said, “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

Kate brushed the back of his hand with her thumb. “You aren’t.”

He led her into the trailer but let go of her hand to turn on a light at the far side of the bed.

She was already in her lounge pants and t-shirt. All she needed to do was take off her sports bra, if she dared, for the clothing to be comfortable enough to sleep in.

“I-I only have the two pillows,” Ben said. “I usually hold—” He gave her a wide-eyed look. “I will get a fresh pillowcase.”

“Okay. I’m… I need to brush my teeth. That pie—”

“Sugary.”

“Right. Okay. Be right back.”

—

Esben was shaking. His hands, at least. He quickly brushed his teeth and used mouthwash, preened his mess of hair, then shed his clothing, leaving the underclothes he already had on.

As he slipped under the bedsheet, Kate entered the trailer wearing the same clothes and a faint smile. She had taken off her bra, and her breasts hung low and bounced freely, swaying under her loose, old black Aerosmith t-shirt that draped attractively.

He looked away and felt her slide into the bed next to him, cool to the touch where her flesh grazed his. She reached for the quilt and unfurled it over them.

“It gets so cold at night,” she said, covering herself to the chin.

He turned off the bedside light and lay down facing her. The only light that remained shone from the bedside digital clock.

“Thank you,” he said. “For staying. I was afraid that—that I…”

“I understand.” She took his hand in hers. “Being honest, I was afraid to leave you alone.”

Her thumb grazed his knuckle, sending shivers up his arm.

“It was serious stuff that came up,” she said. “And on your birthday, no less.”

He had to look away to refrain from crying.

“You’re okay,” she said, pressing her palm to his cheek. Her voice cracked when she said, “I’m so happy you’re still here.”

The tears came. He wiped them away. “Eg og.” Translating, he added, “Me too.” It wasn’t a lie.

He could barely see Kate in the darkness, only the glint of white in her eyes, the shape of her mouth as it opened to speak and closed again. He waited, expectant. With his thumb, he caressed the length of hers, pressed the tip of his thumb against the curve of her thumbnail.

“I take pills,” she said.

She had whispered the words so delicately that he wasn’t sure he understood. “You what?”

“I take pills,” she repeated. “For anxiety. I’m only supposed to take one, as needed, for sleep or during the day if I just can’t deal, though it makes me drowsy. It’s been like this since grad school, panic attacks and chronic insomnia. Comes and goes with stress. I’m not supposed to drink alcohol when I take it or take it if I drank. Both sedatives, you know? But after Nikki, I haven’t been sleeping. I mean, I have, but not well, not enough. Takes hours to fall asleep. So I’ve been taking more pills at night. And you’ve seen how much I drink.”

Esben turned on the bedside light. “Did you take one tonight?”

She nodded. “When I brushed my teeth.”

“Only one?”

She nodded again. “I’m going to try not to for a while, though. Or not drink. Maybe both. I don’t know. I don’t think I have a problem exactly, but could you tell me? If you feel like it’s a problem? I know I get hungover because of it.”

“I may have noticed this, but I wasn’t certain if you were tired or something else.”

“I am tired a lot,” she said with a weary laugh.

He squeezed her hand. “Thank you for telling me. If I notice anything, I will mention it.”

The corner of her mouth ticked up. “I’m sorry for… I don’t know. It’s your birthday, and I’m dredging up all this shit.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you know what happened. And do not worry about it being my birthday. My mother already baked me a cake before I left.”

Kate laughed, and he grinned.

“Big family dinner. It is a thing that makes her happy, so I don’t complain.”

“I’m glad your parents are still around.”

After saying this, she lost her smile, and he worried her thoughts had drifted to her own parents. He felt the disquieting urge to comfort her, to wrap his arms around her. But he made no move, and neither did she.

With their hands joined, he gently pulled her arm as he rolled onto his back. Not hard—a hint, a suggestion—but she must have read his mind. She closed the space between them and laid her head upon his chest, ear pressed close to his heart. Surely she heard how it was racing.

He turned out the light again, then covered her arm with his. “Will you be alright tonight?” he asked.

She hummed an uncommitted sound. “Will you?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Good. We should try to sleep, then.”

He brushed her forearm with his thumb. “Let me know if you can’t.”

“’Kay.”

Kate clung to him as he did to her, fists clenched to each other’s shirt. And in a matter of fourteen minutes, according to the bedside clock, her breathing steadied, and her grip on him relaxed. Esben held her to him, and he watched her sleep until his eyelids became too heavy to fight.