What am I actually trying to do here?
I began to have second thoughts even as I left a speechless Karl-Johan on the pavement yesterday.
That percolating sense of triumph that came over me when I snubbed him was soon replaced by a growing doubt and an anxiety strong enough that it almost made me turn around, run back and retract and repent, like the good girl I have always been.
I look around.
The industrial area is cloaked in that ghostly blue light that only exists for a short time in early summer when the real darkness never dares emerge.
I hurry my steps, turn off on the bike path that leads to the plant nursery and take a shortcut across a small patch of grass.
It is unfathomable.
I – a hard-working, evangelical helicopter parent – am here retrieving drug money from under a boulder for my son.
I – who am so law-abiding that it would make a newborn look like a criminal, who has never even got a parking ticket or forgotten to return a book to the library.
What would Father say?
What would God say?
Instinctively I turn around, as if God were lying in wait for me in the dark bushes.
I can almost hear Father’s deep voice as he reads from Hebrews:
‘And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.’
But the bike path lies empty behind me.
Not a movement to be seen, not a sound to be heard.
But the street lights are sparsely distanced and some are broken. It would be easy to hide in the dark between the domes of light, if one really wanted to.
I shudder, even though the night is warm, at the thought of the bald man with an Eastern European accent in the stairwell. The man Samuel called Igor.
The man who is a monster.
I don’t know if Samuel was right about Igor wanting to kill him, but I don’t dare take the chance, because suddenly it is clear to me, everything is so liberatingly simple: Samuel is my only child and I must do what I can to help him.
It is entirely possible that this new insight is actually a subconscious attempt to compensate Samuel for having denied him a father all these years.
So be it, in that case.
But that Russian monster will not be allowed to lay hands on my son.
Besides, it was high time that I stood up to Karl-Johan. But it took me quite a while to realise that he was actually hitting on me.
It upended my world view actually – that the pastor, of all people, would do something so low.
Because if he can behave like that, who can one trust?
No person.
No congregation.
And what about God? How are things between us, Him and me?
I hurry my steps and look into the dark, trying to keep the theological quandaries at bay, but the pastor’s face keeps intruding into my mind’s eye.
Maybe he is right that I ought to meet someone.
Ever since Samuel was born I haven’t had time for a real relationship.
Of course I have been on dates, I have even been in love a few times, but I always felt that Samuel’s and my delicate relationship wouldn’t withstand my letting a man into our lives in a significant way.
I think of Mario, the gym teacher at Huddinge high school, and feel a little butterfly in my stomach. What would happen if I called him and asked him over for dinner? If I really invited him into my life?
There is a sound behind me. Squeaking and clattering in the distance.
I step aside quickly, into the shadows next to the bike path. Stand behind a tree trunk and let my hand rest against the cold, rough bark.
The sound intensifies and a bike becomes visible fifty yards or so in the distance.
An older lady is bent over the handlebars, she seems to be struggling to keep the old bike moving. I realise something must have got stuck in the spokes, causing the clatter.
I press up against the trunk and wait until the woman has passed.
The noise dies away slowly in the direction of the plant nursery and I draw a sigh of relief.
I’m sure that Igor has heavies, but I strongly doubt he has old ladies on rickety bicycles working for him.
My eyes are getting accustomed to the twilight in the woods and the outlines of trees and bushes emerge more clearly now. I gaze into the sparse woods. Just as I make out the silhouette of something that might actually be a boulder, my phone rings.
I curse myself for forgetting to turn it off, but still pull it out of my pocket and look at the screen.
It is from Father’s hospice.
After a few seconds of deliberation I pick up.
A woman, whose voice I don’t recognise, introduces herself as Katja, a nurse. She calmly explains that Father has taken a turn for the worse.
‘Can you come in?’ she asks.
My heart sinks.
Not this too, not now.
And immediately the thought occurs: that this is God’s punishment for my being rude to Karl-Johan and for leaving him alone with the kids when I knew that he would never manage the hike on his own.
‘How bad is it?’ I ask. ‘I am in the middle of something important.’
The nurse patiently explains that it is impossible to say, but that Father hasn’t been able to communicate since six o’clock and that his blood pressure has dropped. She says it could be hours or days and that it is obviously up to me to decide what to do.
I glimpse movement at the corner of my eye and turn toward the industrial area, but all is still.
Yet I am sure.
Someone or something moved, just within the nebulous fringes of the street light’s glow, and disappeared into the dark woods, like a fish slides through a ray of sunlight in the water only to be swallowed again by shadows.
I take a few steps in among the trees so as not to be as visible. Explain to the nurse that I will do my best, but that I’m not sure I can come at once. I ask her to get in touch immediately if Father gets any worse and she promises to do so.
After I have hung up and turned the sound off on my phone I stand quietly looking into the dark for a long time, but all I see are silhouettes of low bushes and a few chalk-white, flecked birch trunks.
I take a few steps with my arms stretched in front of me in the dusk. And my hand grazes cold stone.
I have found Samuel’s boulder.
Quickly I squat down and begin to dig with my hands at the side of the stone. Pine needles and leaves get stuck under my nails as I shovel last year’s dry leaves and sticks to the side.
At first I think I might be looking in the wrong place, because despite my having dirt up to my elbows I haven’t found anything. But then the ground gives way and my hands fumble in thin air, as if I’ve come upon a subterranean cave.
I bend down, tentatively stretch one arm in under the boulder. Feel around among roots and damp soil before I feel some sturdy canvas under my fingers.
*
Five minutes later I am back at the car. I toss the bag, which is surprisingly light, into the boot and look around one more time.
Everything is calm and dark. Nothing moves in the shadows, no sound can be heard. I sit in the driver’s seat, close the door and sigh deeply with relief.
Then I look at my phone.
There are three missed calls.
They are all from Father’s hospice.