Free B0031RSBSM EBOK by Mari Jungstedt Page B

ajar, to let in the warm night air. She had a hard time imagining that she was so far north.
    In one hand she held the glass of water and in the other a cigarette that she stole from a pack on the kitchen counter. She went outside and sat down on the creaky wooden steps.
    The lush, overgrown summer greenery was beautiful in the glow of the night. She had really come to love Gotland.
    Martina’s mother had left the island at the age of eighteen to work as a nanny for a family in Rotterdam. She had planned to stay in the Netherlands for a year, but then she met Martina’s father, who was studying to be an architect. They got married, and it didn’t take long before Martina and her brother were born.
    The family had come to Gotland every year on vacation. They would stay with Martina’s maternal grandparents in Hemse or at a hotel in the city. Her grandparents had passed away long ago, and her mother had died in a car crash when Martina was eighteen, but the rest of the family still came to Gotland every year.
    Now she was more in love than she had ever been before . A month ago she didn’t even know he existed, but now she felt that he was the very breath of life for her.
    A rustling in the grove of trees next to the youth hostel interrupted her thoughts. She lowered the hand holding the cigarette and looked in that direction. Not a sound. Probably a hedgehog. They always came out at night. Then she heard a twig snap. Was someone there? Her eyes swept over the expanse of lawn in front of the house, the tables and benches, the playground, the clothesline with a solitary blue-and-white-striped bath towel hanging from it, and the juniper bushes that stood like lonely soldiers on parade. Suddenly the silence seemed menacing.
    She put out her cigarette and remained seated for a moment, listening hard, but once again quiet had settled in. She stood up. Maybe she was imagining things. She wasn’t used to these bright, bewitching nights. Wasn’t used to being alone.
You nitwit
, she thought.
You’re in safe and secure Sweden. There’s nothing to be scared of here
.
    She pressed down on the handle and the heavy door opened with a creak.
    More rustling, but she didn’t even turn around to see where the sound was coming from.

SATURDAY, JULY 3
    MORNING LIGHT SEEPED through the thin curtains. It was very quiet. Johan was sitting in an armchair next to the window with his newborn daughter in his arms, a little bundle in the soft cotton blanket that had been wrapped around her. Her face was tiny and flushed; her eyes were closed, her mouth slightly open.
    He thought she was breathing very fast—her heart was beating in her breast like a baby bird’s. He held her without moving, feeling the warmth and weight of her body. He couldn’t get his fill of looking at her.
    Johan didn’t know how long he’d been sitting in this position, staring at the baby. His legs had fallen asleep long ago. It was incomprehensible that this little person in his arms was his daughter, that she was going to call him Pappa.
    Emma lay in bed, sleeping on her side. Her face was smooth and peaceful. She had been through so much pain only a few hours ago. He had tried to help her as best he could. He had never imagined that a birth could be so dramatic. In the middle of everything, as he held Emma’s hand and the midwife issued orders and guided her through the delivery, he was suddenly seized with the enormity of the event. Emma was producing life with her body; another human being was going to come out of it and continue the cycle. That was nature’s proper order. He had never felt so close to life before—and yet it was actually a fight between life and death.
    For several terrifying moments he was afraid that Emma might die. She seemed to lose consciousness, and the midwife’s worried expression didn’t bode well. The problem was that vaginal swelling had formed an obstruction so that the baby couldn’t come out. That was why Emma wasn’t