The Break-Up Retreat(15)

“I have,” I say. “She’s . . . interesting.”

Sandra sighs, or maybe snorts; the reception, despite the signal booster, isn’t great, and it’s a harsh, crackling sound.

“Yeah. Interesting,” she echoes. “Don’t worry, Isobel. I’m with you on this. We’re going to take that place down. I’ll make sure you get the access you need.”

I swallow.

“Thanks, Sandra,” I say. “And I hope Andrea feels better soon. What kind of sick is she?”

“It’s just a stomach bug,” Sandra sighs. “She was at a sleepover yesterday, I’m sure she caught it from one of her friends. She’s miserable, of course, but it will pass quickly.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Can’t be fun. For either of you.”

“I’ve got to go,” Sandra says. “I promised I’d watch some Korean show in bed with her. But, just . . . hang on and hang out, okay? Just act like a patient for a couple of days until I get there.”

“I will,” I say.

“And don’t drink the Kool-Aid.” I’m sure she means for it to sound like a joke, but there is a sharpness, a concern, in there as well. “Martina is charismatic. Even I fell for it, at first. But she’s a hack. She’s dangerous.”

“I won’t,” I say. “And they didn’t drink Kool-Aid at Jonestown. It was Flavor Aid. It’s a common misconception.”

“Jesus, you’re insufferable.” Sandra laughs. “Take care of yourself. Stick to your cover story. I’ll be there before you know it.”

She hangs up.

I’m left staring at the phone.

I can’t be upset with Sandra. She’s taking a risk, helping me with this, and I know that. She’s putting her own job, and potentially her own safety, on the line; and, unlike me, she’s got people to take care of.

The original plan was for this to take place in another six to eight weeks, give Sandra time to get another job lined up.

But when they offered me a spot due to a patient dropping out last minute, she didn’t argue. She didn’t try to pull out. She went along with it, because it’s the right thing to do.

Sandra has always been that way, ever since we were kids, ever since our mothers used to drink cheap red wine in the kitchen and gossip about their colleagues in academia while we watched the Disney Channel in their living room.

She’s rough around the edges but deeply kind, and with the rare kind of integrity that has managed to maintain its fervor through all the petty little irritants and trials of adulthood.

And she was the person who first confirmed my suspicions: There was something deeply wrong with the Himlafall Clinic.





Chapter 8


It was six or so months ago that I first approached Sandra about her place of employment, and she saw through me immediately.

“What have you heard ?” she asked me, that deep groove between her eyebrows showing as she chugged the last of the beer in her glass.

I told her about the Reddit post I’d found, and how the cops had confirmed that someone named Susannah Wallin had been reported missing in November of last year but that they’d refused to show me a police report or a picture.

I’d managed to track down a couple of articles about Susannah Wallin from back in the day that seemed to confirm her existence: one about her achievements as a young, rising softball star, with a picture of a beaming, white teenage girl with pigtails and braces, holding a glove in one hand and a trophy in the other, and one about the very same Susannah Wallin six years later as one of the top-performing sales women in what was clearly a pyramid scheme. By that point, she’d lost the braces and dyed her hair a deep caramel, her young face caked in products from the MLM she was apparently excelling in.

She looked like any young woman in any random town in Sweden; she could have been anyone or no one. Still, there was a sweetness to her smile, and something else, in both pictures, both articles; like a sort of yearning. A desperation to be seen, recognized. Loved.

I showed Sandra the pictures I’d found, and she shook her head.

“These are too old. This last one is from 2016. Anything more current? Social media?”

I told her there was no social media. No Instagram, no TikTok, no Facebook, no Twitter, no LinkedIn. It was like she’d been wiped from the internet.

Sandra looked troubled.

“I wouldn’t put it past them ,” she said. “I haven’t heard anything about this girl, specifically. But, Christ . . . the way that place is run. What they do to those women. It’s haunting. It’s like they come out different people. And not in a good way .”

She told me about the patients who had breakdowns and left, midweek, mute and with reddened eyes. She told me about the patients who’d come back, over and over again, convinced that all they needed, more than their jobs, or houses, or children, was just one more week at Himlafall.

And she told me about the patients who’d arrive at the exercise sessions quiet, and sluggish, as though they’d taken something. Or had been given something.

“I’ve tried talking to the other employees about it. But they won’t acknowledge it. Or maybe they just don’t stick around long enough to notice, or care. The whole staff has been cycled out twice in the time I’ve been there, and it’s been less than a year.”