The One Day You Were My Husband (84)

“Because he loved you,” Mum says. “And I am your mother and I asked him for help. Because he cared that innocent women were having their lives torn apart by treatable infections they should never have had in the first place. But I didn’t wear him down. If he’d said no, I’d have left it there.”

She takes a long breath. “And because you are so intent on blaming me, you are straying from the most important matter here, Carrie, which is that he was caught with methamphetamines, which neither I nor Prawat had any knowledge of whatsoever. You might want to focus your attention on that.”

“No. You don’t get to take the moral high ground here. You sent my partner into Thailand with something that you knew could cause harm. And then you kept this from me for all these years. Why, Mum? You just didn’t want to look bad?”

“See it that way if you like,” she says.

I end the call.

I stand there on the jetty, shivering. Nearby there are car lights moving through the trees; I decide against screaming. But once again, I have a strong urge to hurl my phone in the water, and the urge is only quelled when I run back into the house and throw a glass across the room.

It shatters against an old wooden blanket box that Johan’s telly sits on, and it does actually help, but not enough. I pick up another one, ready to throw, but as I do there’s a knock at the door, and Johan walks in.



* * *



—

He’s carrying what looks like a loaf of bread wrapped in brown paper. His body’s still as his eyes travel from me to the smashed glass.

He moves briefly as if to hold me, then stops, and for an unguarded moment I allow myself to imagine how it would feel if he did. I still know exactly how he and his clothes would smell, how his chin would rest on the top of my head and I’d be able to feel his heart. I long for that right now—from him or anyone—but even more strongly, my instinct is to stand alone.

We look at each other for a long time before he puts the bag of bread on the table and walks over to the under-sink cupboard for a dustpan and brush.

“I’ve just had a major confrontation with my mother,” I say.

“I’m not surprised.” He starts sweeping up the glass. “My own mother has called me three times since she bumped into you this morning.” He pauses for a moment. “I take it your mum has set you straight?”

“She says her only involvement was to ask you to deliver some antibiotics to a charity. Is that true?” My voice falters. “I have to know, Johan.”

He stands up, puts the glass into the bin. “Yes. That’s exactly how it was. I hope my mother didn’t imply that Adelina was involved in the serious stuff.”

“She didn’t tell me much,” I admit. I sit down at the table. “But she was insistent that your imprisonment was my mother’s fault.”

Johan frowns. “I had a feeling she’d have said that. I’m sorry.”

“So Mum’s only involvement was these antibiotics?”

“Correct.” He comes over, crouches in front of me. “You don’t really believe your mum’s a criminal, do you?”

I feel too vulnerable to have him this close to me, looking at me with those impossible eyes.

“No.” I shift away from him. “But I didn’t believe you were, either, and then you pleaded guilty and willingly received twenty-five years in a maximum security prison. I don’t feel like I can trust anyone, anymore apart from my husband and children.”

Johan thinks about this for a moment. Then he stands up. “I get it,” he says. “That’s why I came. Just give me a moment.”

He takes the bin and its shards of glass out into the evening.





Thirty-two.




“I want to talk about us,” Johan says.

We’ve taken seats on either side of his table.

Let’s put a table between us, I said the first night I went back to his flat. Anything to keep our hands off each other a few more minutes.

Caught off guard, I stay silent. I don’t want to talk about us. Not now. I thought he was here to tell me what happened in Thailand.

“The messages between us on Roof the past few days,” he continues. “I’m not imagining it. Am I?”

After a pause, I shake my head.

Johan sits back. “We both have families. We are both good people, with no desire to cause harm. This has to stop.”

I nod, and before I know it, tears have filled my eyes again. Even this conversation, this ending of something that has not even begun, feels like a betrayal. I am a married woman with two beloved children. I should never have come to his house in the first place. I should not have even read his messages, let alone replied.

“I think this…thing between us is just part of the shock of being back in touch.” His voice has relaxed a little. “I don’t think it’s real. Even though it’s felt very real at times.”

I tell him I agree, although privately I feel like his body is telling a different story. I can still read it.

“And I’m sorry I invited you here. That was insane. Mum’s in pieces. God knows, she went through it, watching me trying to recover. She was so happy when I met Freja.”

“I’ll leave soon,” I say. “I’ll drive back up to Stockholm tonight.”