I took the opportunity to ask a cautious question about the previous night’s incidents, but Ulrika assured me that Stella wasn’t in any trouble, that it was some boy problem, the sort of thing that commonly afflicts eighteen-year-olds. There was no need for me to worry.
On Sunday I spoke on the phone with my parents. When the topic of Stella came up, I mentioned that she was seldom at home these days, at which point Mom reminded me of how I had been as a teenager. It’s so easy to lose perspective.
On Monday I had a funeral in the morning and a baptism in the afternoon. It’s such a strange job I have, where life and death shake hands in the foyer. In the evening, Ulrika went to yoga and Stella locked herself in her room.
On Wednesday I officiated a lovely marriage ceremony for an older couple in our congregation who had gotten to know each other as they grieved their former life partners. A moment that truly touched my heart.
On Thursday I twisted my ankle playing basketball. My old friend from handball, Anders, now a fireman and father of four boys, accidentally stepped on my foot. Despite the injury, I managed to remain on the court for the whole game.
When I biked to work on Friday morning, I was tired. After lunch I buried a man who had only made it to forty-two. Cancer, of course. I never get used to the fact that people younger than I am can die. His daughter had written a farewell poem but couldn’t get through it, with all her tears. I found it impossible to keep from thinking of Stella.
* * *
On Friday evening I felt unusually worn down after a long week. I stood at the window and watched the end of August sink into the horizon. The solemnity of autumn had a foot through the door. The last of the grill smoke vanished up over the rooftops in curling columns and patio furniture was emptied of cushions.
At last I took off my clerical collar and I wiped my sweaty neck. When I leaned against the windowsill, I accidentally knocked our family photo to the floor.
A crack appeared across the glass, but I put the photo back anyway. In the picture, which is at least a decade old, I have a healthy glow and something playful about my eyes. I recalled that we laughed just before the photographer snapped the picture. Ulrika is smiling with her mouth open, and in front of us is Stella, with rosy cheeks, braided hair, and a Mickey Mouse shirt. I stood at the window for a long time, gazing at the photograph as the memories swelled in my throat.
After a shower, I made a casserole with pork tenderloin and chorizo. Ulrika had bought new earrings, small silver feathers, and we shared a bottle of South African wine with our meal, then rounded out the evening with pretzel sticks and a game of Trivial Pursuit on the sofa.
“Do you know where Stella is?” I asked as I undressed in the bedroom. Ulrika had already crawled under the covers and drawn the blankets to her chin.
“She was going to see Amina. She wasn’t sure if she would be coming home.”
This last bit slipped out of her like a minor detail, although Ulrika knows exactly what I think about hearing that our daughter might come home on a given night.
I looked at the clock; it was quarter past eleven.
“She’ll get here when she gets here,” Ulrika said.
I glared at her. Sometimes I think she says things just to provoke me.
“I’ll text her,” I said.
So I wrote to Stella and asked if she was planning to sleep at home. Naturally, I didn’t receive a response.
With a heavy sigh, I got in bed. Ulrika immediately rolled over onto my side and slipped a hand onto my hip. She kissed my neck as I stared at the ceiling.
I know I shouldn’t worry. I was never the neurotic type when I was young. The anxiety crept up on me when I had a child, and it only seems to increase with each passing year.
With an eighteen-year-old daughter you have two options: either you drown under the constant worry or you refuse to think about all the risks she seems to love taking. It’s simply a question of self-preservation.
Soon Ulrika was asleep on my arm. Her warm breath rolled over my cheek like gentle waves. Now and then she gave a start, a quick, electric movement, but soon sleep enfolded her again.
I really did try to sleep, but my head was occupied with thoughts. My exhaustion had given way to a state of manic brain activity. I thought of all the dreams I’d had throughout the years, many of which had changed and others of which I still hoped to fulfill. And then I thought about Stella’s dreams and was forced to accept a painful truth—I didn’t know what my daughter wanted from her life. She stubbornly claims that she doesn’t even know. No plans, no structure. So unlike me. When I finished high school I had a very clear image of how my life would take shape.