Amina wrote back that she had practice, but that she’d love to get a glass of wine afterward.
I kept Chris out of my mind all day. I found there was a new lightness in my chest and walked around smiling and humming Disney songs all afternoon.
When we closed the store at seven, I tagged along with my coworkers to grab a bite at Stortorget. Amina’s practice wouldn’t end until eight anyway.
At eight thirty she sent a text.
Too wrecked to go out match tomorrow
No problem, I responded. Xoxo.
Sorry youre not mad right
Course not, I wrote.
We can talk tomorrow love you xoxo
I had to get up for work too, and I wasn’t planning to stay out very long. Also, I was coming more and more to terms with what had happened, and I accepted it as a good thing. I really didn’t feel like having a deep conversation about trust and shit.
I ordered a glass of sparkling wine, put on my sunglasses, and leaned back to enjoy the sun.
My colleagues started chattering about their usual topics: diapers, doo-doo, baby food, and BabyBj?rns, and even though I fake-yawned as wide as I possibly could, they didn’t seem to catch on. We needed a better topic of conversation, something more acute, something to get people riled up a little.
Malin said that the preschool her children went to was focusing on the lesson “each person is of equal worth” and the others chimed in, in unison, about how important and good that was.
I saw my chance.
“Come on,” I said. “Do you really think everyone is truly equal?”
They stared at me like you do when you’re not sure if someone is trying to make a joke or if they just said something unusually stupid.
“I’m totally serious.” I turned to Malin, the manager, since she’s the easiest to get worked up. “If you had to choose, either fifty kids in Syria have to die or else your Tindra does, what would you do?”
“Oh, lay off,” Sofie whined. “You can’t say stuff like that.”
But Malin wanted to answer.
“That example has nothing to do with people being equal. Of course Tindra is worth more to me, because she’s my child, but from a purely objective standpoint she isn’t worth more than any other person.”
I hadn’t expected anything else. Malin isn’t dumb.
“Would you say that Tindra is worth the same as a pedophile?”
Malin made a face.
“Pedophiles don’t even deserve to be called human.”
I smiled triumphantly.
“What about murderers? Rapists?”
“Those are extreme examples,” said Sofie. “Ninety-nine percent of people are neither pedophiles nor murderers.”
“What about someone who beats their wife or kid? A racist? Someone who writes hate messages online, a bully? Is that person worth the same as an innocent child?”
Sofie started to respond, but she was interrupted by Malin, who thought that the “discussion was pointless.” I tried in vain to goad her back into it but soon the mommy chatter was back in full swing again. The step from moral dilemmas to vitamin drops and Pull-Ups is not as far as you might think.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
“See you tomorrow,” I said, hugging them one by one. Then I strolled across the town square to get my bike.
You could tell it was a payday weekend. It was ten thirty, but people were streaming through town, excited at the chance to treat themselves to an extra drink, happy about the nice weather, pumped about sucking up the last few drops of warmth as fall was approaching.
At the bus stop I lifted my bike out of the rack and had just swung my right leg over the frame when something caught my eye.
There she was, right across the street, her back to a brick wall and her eyes roving the bus stop, wearing a floral, summery yellow dress, boots, and a beige coat with her bag held tightly over her shoulder.
I had to look again to make sure.
My arms turned to spaghetti and the bike tipped. I lost my balance.
80
Shirine’s eyes are glistening with tears.
“Get ahold of yourself,” I say.
Sentimental farewells are, like, not my thing. So obviously I’m crabby.
“I’m sure I’ll still be here when you get back.”
“I don’t think so,” Shirine says, biting her lower lip.
She’s leaving tomorrow; she’ll be gone for three weeks.
“It’s going to trial, right?” she says.
“Seems like.”
I don’t really want to talk about it.
“The Canary Islands?” I say instead, a skeptical look on my face. “I’m sure you can still change your mind. You got cancellation insurance, didn’t you?”