Free A Blessed Child by Linn Ullmann Page B

perfect!” said Marion, lowering her breast into the glass.

Chapter 25
    Now, more than twenty-five years later, she was on her way to Hammarsö again. But first she would spend the night in Sunne. Ragnar was gone. Only his breath in Erika’s lungs. His blood in Erika’s veins. A flood of pain and waves and breathing. Ragnar’s breathing in her lungs, in her mouth, Ragnar’s blood in her veins.
    She spoke of him to no one. Ever.
    Ragnar was gone.
    It wasn’t so hard to say.
    Erika said it inside herself: Ragnar’s gone, she said. Then she said: I am this car. I am this road. I am this snow, falling outside. I am these windshield wipers. I am the pregnant woman beside me and the boy in the backseat.
    They were almost at Sunne. The woman asked if they could stop at the next gas station to use the toilet. It was something of an effort for her to have to ask. Erika took the opportunity to ring Laura. It was snowing heavily now.
    “Sunne, oh yes! They’ve got a spa in Sunne! I think it’s dreadful there. But you can eat pesto and greens and take steam baths until trees grow out of your ears,” Laura said over the phone.
    Laura tried to laugh, but Erika could hear something was wrong. Laura seemed uneasy, breathless. Erika asked what was the matter.
    “It’s the neighbors,” said Laura.
    “You’re always worrying about the neighbors,” Erika said. “You’ve got to stop.”
    “Yes,” said Laura.
    “I might ring Isak and tell him I’m not coming,” said Erika. “I want to come home.”
    “You needn’t decide now,” said Laura. “Sleep on it.”
    “I’ve got passengers in the car,” said Erika.
    “I know,” said Laura. “You told me.”
    “I don’t quite know what to do with them. The woman’s pregnant.”
    “But don’t they want to be dropped off in Sunne?”
    Erika opened her mouth, stuck out her tongue, and tasted the snow.
    “I hope so,” she said. “I have to get some sleep.”

Chapter 26
    I’m awake, said Ragnar. I’m wide awake; I’ve never been so wide awake in all my life. If this isn’t being awake, if this is sleeping, I want to sleep like this always. Erika, don’t leave me. Soon we’ll be fourteen and we have to stay together. I love you. Day after day, month after month, year after year I will love you and lie beside you in the grass on Hammarsö and listen to the music on the waters.

Part II: The Colony
Everybody said they were so lucky to live just at that location. Laura stretched her arms up to the sky and took a deep breath. An idyllic oasis in the heart of the capital, wrote the real estate agent when he was drafting the property description.
    “Explain to me what that means,” Laura said.
    “What what means?” asked the real estate agent.
    “An
idyllic oasis.
I want to know what it means.”
    Jonas Guave, top real estate agent, senior partner in Prospero Properties, was known for talking people into offers that were more than they could afford. Laura had called him one morning when she was bored and said she wanted to sell her house.
    “Old-fashioned charm and modern comfort combined,” he said. “It’s incredible what you’ve done with the house, Laura. It’s exactly what everybody wants.”

Chapter 27
    Laura, skinny as a strip of film negative, sat on the stone wall outside the kitchen door, dangling her legs. Gangly, bony little-girl legs. Her dress was white, her skin tanned. Next year, Laura would get just as brown, maybe browner, and anyway she wouldn’t be sitting here swinging her legs and waiting for Isak to come out of his study and play Yahtzee. Next summer she’d be glorying topless on the beach in polka-dot bikini briefs, just like Erika and Marion and the rest.
Fabulous Erika!
Laura once heard an almost grown-up boy say exactly that. The boy, who might have been seventeen, stared at Erika for a long time and said to his friend, There goes that fabulous girl. Laura’s hair was matted and sticky and pale blond, virtually white. She