Adam served me homemade soup, brought me compression stockings and warm rice pillows, and gave me massages. Although I questioned the timing, whether it was really the right moment for us to bring a child into the world, I never doubted that Adam was the right man to father my child.
* * *
I spent quite a lot of time working when Stella was little. Sometimes I wondered if there was something wrong with me, whether I was somehow constructed differently from other new mothers, because I couldn’t put the rest of my life on standby and get all my strength from the fact that I was now the mother of a child.
Without Adam, it wouldn’t have been possible. He was constantly there, a safe harbor where I could land. He never denied me anything. Adam supported me at any price.
I soon found that the successes I was denied in my family life could be won instead in my career. By the time I was twenty-nine I had become a full-fledged attorney, and, considered an up-and-comer, I was recruited to a major firm with offices in all three Swedish metro areas. As Adam taught Stella to ride her bike without training wheels and put Band-Aids on her skinned knees, I commuted between high-profile clients in Stockholm and quick briefs in front of kids’ shows and a microwaved dinner plate. I hardly think I’m alone in saying that I craved stimulation from both career and family. Even though I happen to have been born without a penis.
Being a devoted mother always seemed to collide with my egotistical desire for self-affirmation and success in other parts of my life, and although I truly did try, I never managed to reduce myself enough to become the mother I was expected to be, the mother I believed I wanted to be. Meanwhile I saw men constantly getting away with the same shortcomings that plagued me and made me feel worthless as a parent.
At first, I considered the bond that developed between Adam and Stella to be entirely a good thing. Stella was Daddy’s girl. I might come home late, my brain full of statutes and precedents, to find them cuddled up in a sea of pillows, having bedtime stories in pajamas. Stella held her Dad’s hand through all of life’s little forks in the road. It was an Astrid Lindgren world, and I felt tiny leaps of joy in my heart every morning when our daughter’s miniature feet came romping across the bedroom floor.
* * *
The transformation happened very slowly. I can’t say when it began, but things that had once warmed my heart were soon sending cold shivers down my spine. I found new triggers for irritation everywhere. When someone pointed out what a wonderful father Adam was and what a lovely relationship he seemed to have with Stella, I no longer experienced pride; rather, I felt alienated. When Adam related long, colorful descriptions of his fairy-tale days with Stella, I welled with guilt and shame and envy.
We spoke early on about expanding our family. I suppose our desire for another child was grounded in a vague disappointment that neither of us would ever have given voice to. Against all reason, I convinced myself that my relationship with Stella would benefit if she had a sibling.
We tried to conceive again for over a year. We never talked about why it didn’t work. I suspect this was due to some sort of mutual but utterly misplaced respect. Sooner or later, the test would be positive and until then all we could do was try as often as we could manage, and, in Adam’s case, perhaps also pray to God for some sort of aid.
On Walpurgis Night the year Stella was four, we finally broke the silence. We were lying in bed and the whole world spun as soon as I opened my eyes. The bonfire smell had penetrated our skin.
“Honey,” Adam whispered. “Something must be wrong.”
“Wrong?” I repeated, although I knew what he was talking about.
“What should we do?”
I couldn’t produce a single word. Tears stung behind my eyelids, but I kept fighting them back.
“I love you,” Adam said.
I was unable to respond.
91
“Does the prosecutor have any questions for the witness?” the presiding judge asks.
“Yes, I do.”
Jenny Jansdotter confers briefly with the assistant prosecutor before turning to Adam.
“How was your state of mind on the Friday in question?”
I think I glimpse a shrug, but Adam doesn’t have time to formulate a response before Jansdotter continues.
“You said earlier that you felt tired and worn out. It had been a tough week. You had just had to bury a young man.”
“That’s right.”
“And yet you couldn’t sleep that night?”
“Well, sometimes that sort of exhaustion has the opposite effect,” Adam says calmly. “You can’t fall asleep, even though you feel dead tired. I was also worried about Stella, of course. Terribly worried. I don’t like going to sleep before she gets home.”