I like my colleagues. I have always depended upon them, always felt their trust and love. Ever since I started with this congregation, large parts of the operation have undergone positive changes, and I’m sure most people would agree that is largely to my credit. I was so unprepared to be slandered in this manner that it was as if my mind went numb. Like a zombie, I walked straight into the kitchen and joined them at the table.
“Why … Adam!” Monika exclaimed.
Five pairs of eyes stared at me, huge and mute, as if they had just witnessed the second coming of the Lord.
“You’re not supposed to be at work, are you?” they chorused.
“I have a wedding this afternoon.”
“But we assigned Otto to that,” said Anita, our administrator.
“Didn’t you see that I reported myself healthy again?”
She blushed.
“We didn’t think you…”
I examined each of them, one by one, and waited for someone to make excuses, but all that came out were broken sentences.
At last Monika stood up and took my arm. She has been with the congregation since the days of Saint Ansgar—she’s the glue that holds us all together, the rock we all cling to in every situation.
“Come,” she said, leading me slowly down the corridor as my brain continued to run on idle.
We sat down across from each other in the low easy chairs in her office. Monika placed her ring-adorned hands on my knees and leaned forward with her gentle cat eyes.
“Where do you think we went wrong, Monika?”
She took me by the elbows and shook her head slowly.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. “God has a purpose. Something we haven’t discovered yet.”
Part of me wanted to tell Monika and God to go to hell, but luckily I came to my senses and thanked her for her concern instead.
“Now go home and get some proper rest. Take care of Ulrika,” Monika said, hugging me. “I’ll be praying for you two. And for Stella.”
In that moment her words felt so petty. Almost fake.
But I do wish I had followed Monika’s advice.
* * *
There was too much crawling around under my skin. My thoughts seemed to take shape behind a thick curtain of fog, and my heart was scratching at my ribs like a terrier. My body was telling me to run, to keep from congealing into a single painful present, so I ran—or walked, at least—mile after mile until my back was soaked with sweat.
I walked all the way downtown, and as I left City Park I wondered how everything would have turned out if we’d reported Robin to the police. He had raped Stella, and we had let him get away with it. What signals had that sent to our daughter? What sort of parents were we?
My pulse was pounding indignantly in my neck, and my muscles were twitching. I sped up as I passed the dog park at S?dra Esplanaden.
When I saw the street sign for Tullgatan, I felt a stabbing in my chest. I stopped and stared.
This was where Christopher Olsen’s ex-girlfriend lived. Blomberg had read us her address. I couldn’t just walk by.
26
It was in many ways Ulrika’s decision not to file a police report on Robin. I don’t mean to blame her—it was my choice too—but I likely wouldn’t have hesitated to report him if it hadn’t been for Ulrika’s objections.
I shoved him up against the wall in the counselors’ cabin, my fist hanging in the air, but at the last second I managed to control myself. I dragged Stella off through the grove of trees and sat her in my car. I still don’t recall anything about the drive home.
Ulrika thought we should take Stella to the hospital immediately, but I was of the opinion that we had to call the police first.
“He raped her,” I said. “Even if Stella did follow him to the counselors’ cabin. Whether or not she initiated it.”
Ulrika was dashing back and forth in the kitchen.
“I don’t know what’s best,” she said.
“You can’t mean to say that Stella is responsible in any way. She’s a child.”
“Not in the eyes of the law. She’s fifteen. The age of consent in Sweden.”
Ulrika stopped by the window. Her shoulders were shaking.
“I know how this sort of trial goes,” she said. “I’ve personally been involved in several of them.”
I’d almost repressed the memory, but a few years earlier Ulrika had defended a guy who was on trial, along with a few other young men, for gang rape. There had been an outcry when all of them were acquitted.
“They’ll come after her hard,” said Ulrika. “Every detail will be scrutinized. What she said, how she acted, what she was wearing.”