Shame
socialising and the small talk and pretending that everything was fine. She sat on her bed and weighed her mobile phone, still switched off, in her hand. She wanted so badly to hear his voice, but he would be able to tell that something was wrong and she wouldn’t be able to explain. And the experience this afternoon had once again triggered all her doubts. He didn’t know who she really was.
She was utterly alone; not even Thomas could share her shame.
The guilt. She had never allowed herself to mourn. Not deeply. Because how could she permit herself to do that? She had missed Lasse so terribly after she was left all alone with their mother. Missed him in a way she hadn’t thought possible. He had always been there, and she had taken for granted that he would always continue to be there. There was nobody who could take his place. But her grief was so abject that it would desecrate his memory. She didn’t have the right. Instead she did everything in her power to make her mother’s loss more tolerable, tried to be happy and helpful, cheer her up as best she could. She envied her mother’s right to indulge and wallow in sorrow without any obligations towards those who were still alive. Her sorrow was noble, genuine, not like Monika’s, which served equally to hide the truth that was impossible to bear.
The betrayal. Horrified, she had realised that life outside their home would go on as if nothing had happened. Nothing was turned upside down or changed after the unthinkable happened. The same people were on the bus in the morning, the same programmes were on TV, and the neighbour was still adding an extension to his house. Everything continued without the rest of the world caring that he was gone, or even noticing. And her own life went on as well. The memory of him would one day lose its solid contours and fade; the emptiness would remain but the world would be changed so that the empty space he left would be less noticeable. The path he would have taken would grow narrower and narrower and finally vanish in obscurity, transformed into wondering about who he might have become and how his life might have turned out. And she could do nothing to prevent what had happened.
Nothing.
Success, admiration, status. Every day of her life she had been ready to trade all she had ever achieved for the opportunity to do it over.
Because what death demanded was unreasonable. What it demanded was that she should fully understand. And accept the inevitable truth. Never again.
Never again.
Never again, ever.
She ate in her room. Just before dinner she had called Åse and complained of a headache. Fifteen minutes later there was a knock at her door and there stood Åse with a tray full of food.
‘I told the guru that you were eating in your room. Hope you feel better soon.’
She fell asleep the minute she lay down, and slept for almost nine hours. She slipped off into sleep to escape her guilty conscience at not ringing Thomas as she had promised. Don’t ever leave me alone with a silent phone again. I don’t know if I could stand it .
When she woke up she keyed in his number even though it was really too early.
‘Hello?’
She could hear that he had just woken up.
‘It’s me … I’m sorry for not calling you yesterday.’
He didn’t answer, and his silence scared her. She tried to think up an excuse but had none that was acceptable. And she didn’t want to lie. Not to him. He had every reason in the world to say nothing. She knew far too well how she would feel if he was the one who went away on a course and didn’t call.
I ask only one thing, and that’s for you to be honest, that you tell me the truth so I’ll understand what’s happening .
She closed her eyes.
‘Forgive me, Thomas. I had a tough day yesterday and afterwards I locked myself in my room; I couldn’t even go to dinner.’
‘Good grief. That sounds like a fun course. What was so tough about it?’
There was a hint of something in his voice, and she knew at once that what she had said was just making the whole thing worse. She had failed him by not calling and sharing her day with him, preferring to handle it on her own.
As usual.
She was going to wreck this too. Her cowardice would once again claim its due and rob her of what she wanted most of all. The only thing he required was honesty, and that was the one thing she was incapable of giving. Her secret would fester like a sore, keeping them apart. It was actually
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