Eleven

Ann received a shock when she arrived home, dragging a tired and whining Erik, who immediately threw himself down on the floor in the hall and refused to take off his coat and shoes. She didn’t care, allowing him to sit there and stew, and simply went mechanically to the kitchen and got some crackers that she slipped into his hand.

The letter was lying on the doormat. A white rectangle against a green background. She thought it looked like a painting. She hesitated before picking it up. She recognized his handwriting. How could she forget it? His childish cursive, the sprawling style like that of a twelve-year-old. How many letters had she received from him? Perhaps one, and then a couple of postcards.

She stared at the letter with a feeling of paralysis mixed with anger. Why is he writing? Now? About what? She tried to understand, find reasons for Edvard to take the trouble. He was no letter writer, and in view of his vacillating character he had had endless opportunity to change his mind, even before he put the letter in its envelope and affixed the stamp. Ann could picture him in her mind, hesitant, his tongue poised to seal it. Thereafter, when he was on his way to the mailbox on the island or in to Öregrund, he could have left it on the table, said to himself that there was no hurry, or left it, unconsciously or consciously, in the car. Then, above all, the postbox, what agonies he must have suffered. And at last, the terror once the letter had been posted and he returned to the house on the island.

She bent down and picked it up. Erik had eaten up the crackers and was screaming for more. With the letter in her hand she pulled off his outerwear, stood him on his feet, dragged him into the kitchen, poured out some juice, and took out some chocolate-covered crackers.

There was nothing she didn’t feel terrified about in the context of a letter from Edvard. There were evenings with half-drunk bottles of wine, warm nights and sticky sheets, mornings with a stiff body and a paralyzing feeling of meaninglessness, days at work, in front of the window facing east across the flat landscape, with the pointed spire of the Vaksala church as marker of the direction of her thoughts.

It was all this, all these hours, that were Edvard. Then to get a letter, so unlikely, so unfairly unnecessary, for what good could come of this? The most innocent greeting would mean a taunt. Some kind of apology equally so, but what did he have to apologize for? She was the one who had caused the breech. That he had later met a woman on his unexpected Thailand trip was something she had sniffed out but had not confirmed. That was a long time after they had broken up, so he could not be blamed for it. She herself had become pregnant by another man, which was far worse.

A thought that perhaps he had moved made her take a second look at the envelope, but there was nothing to indicate the sender’s address.

Why send a letter when he could just as easily have called? Was the content such that he could not bear to give it over the phone? Was it an invitation to his wedding? That was the kind of event one chose to send out formal notices about. No, he would not be so cruel.

Erik had finished his chocolate and begged for more. Ann tore off a piece of paper towel and wiped his hands and mouth.

“I’ll give you a little more, but that’s all,” she said and felt a pang of guilt. It was Erik who was her life, the one she loved and longed for. What did a silly letter mean?

For a moment she considered throwing it out, but it was such a painful thought that she immediately dismissed it.

She tore open the envelope. Inside was a full-size sheet of paper. The text consisted of only a few lines:

Ann read it again. So typical of Edvard. Short sentences, a jumble of hen houses and hospitals. No personal information other than that he was working. As if that was new. Nothing about how he was or what he was thinking.

She read it a third time. Perhaps Viola was in bad shape? She was over ninety years old, after all. That must be it, Ann thought, otherwise he would not have written. He thinks she is going to die and knows I would not forgive him if he had not told me. Perhaps Viola asked him to write? Perhaps the idea had been hers alone?

After Edvard left his family many years ago he had lived in Viola’s house in Gräsö. It was an old archipelago homestead from the 1800s, and Edvard rented the whole upstairs. He had eventually acclimatized to the island, found a job with a builder, and regarded himself as a permanent Gräsö inhabitant. For Viola it was both a security and a comfort to have Edvard as a tenant. She lacked family, and after he had lived there for a couple of years she decided that it was Edvard who would be her heir.

At first Viola had seen Ann as a threat, someone who would perhaps convince Edvard to move away. But in time the old woman had accepted her, seemingly against her will and gruffly, as was her manner. She had perhaps hoped that Edvard and Ann would become a couple on Gräsö.

Viola herself had had an unhappy love affair in her youth—Victor, an old childhood friend of the same age. At some point Viola had let slip that she once, seventy years ago, had hoped that they would marry. But nothing came of it. Victor went to sea, was away from the island for a few years, came back and took over his parents’ farm. They still saw each other. Victor came by almost every day. Ann saw them as the world’s most devoted noncohabiting couple.

Perhaps it was there, in the old peoples’ unconsummated life together, the material source for why Viola had let Ann come close. She saw that however intimate Ann and Edvard were, they didn’t manage to make it.

Ann didn’t know anything about what it meant to break a hip, but imagined that for an old person it could mark the beginning of the end. Perhaps Viola sensed this and wished to see Ann one last time?

Candy and juice had perked Erik up and he crawled down from the chair. Ann watched him as he disappeared into his room. He was largely independent now and she thanked the gods for it.

Of course she had to visit the old woman. She wanted to go to the hospital immediately, but she couldn’t take Erik. Ann also didn’t want Viola to meet him, since he was the reason why Ann and Edvard had broken up.

She decided she would go there tomorrow directly after the morning meeting at work. She would spend the evening with her speculations. She read the letter one more time and wished she could have seen Edvard when he wrote it.