The Heart Keeper Read online

  ‘It’s so hot,’ says Sindre.

  ‘Mmm,’ I say, and feel a vicious dread spreading out in my gut at the thought of how we are going to pass the time in this place, alone together, for a whole week. We’ll have to play the stilted pretense game. Do you want another margarita, honey? Oh yes, sure, how thoughtful of you, make it a double. Can you rub my back with sun lotion?

  Oliver didn’t come in the end, choosing to spend the holidays with Monica and her family in Drøbak, even though he spent it there last year, too. I wonder if Monica didn’t allow him to come. I wouldn’t blame her – if he was my son, would I have allowed him to spend Christmas across the world with two adults who were falling to pieces?

  Sindre and I have agreed not to talk about last Christmas, when we took Amalie to South Africa, but I think about it anyway. I think about how the new green and blue beads at the bottom of her braids swished as she skipped ahead of us on the beach.

  *

  It’s still dark when I wake, but when I step onto the balcony, the sky is burning orange and pink in the east. I go back inside and change from my silk camisole and shorts into yoga pants and a thin hoodie. I take the elevator down to the empty reception and cross the marbled space barefoot. It’s just a short walk on smooth, paved stones down to the sea, and I stand a while at the top of the beach, listening to the murmur of the waves and watching the blossoming sky.

  ‘Merry Christmas, baby bear,’ I whisper. At the far end of the hotel’s beach, where it borders the public beach, some big rocks jut out into the water. I climb onto the one furthest out and pull the little soft toy from the pocket of my hoodie. Dinky Bear and I sit watching the Pacific waves surge and recede, each chasing the next, forever. I busy my mind counting the swells further out, then the birds swooping down into them, emerging with wildly squirming fish. It isn’t only Amalie who has left me behind. Every day, I’m making memories she will never share, however meaningless. I am becoming someone she will never know. I’m in a place she will never see, but the strange thing is that I feel close to her here. I count the hours: how many days are left of this year, and how many since I closed my eyes and Amalie walked away from me and into the water. I think about how there is an actual, numerical answer to these questions – to how many fish are in the sea, to how many times my heart has beat in my lifetime, how many tears I’ve cried, to how many times I’ve spoken her name.

  ‘Amalie,’ I say. I hold Dinky Bear and count the beats of my own racing heart. And then – ‘I’m sorry.’ As I speak, a dolphin surges from the sea almost directly in front of me, its beautiful, slick back shimmering with the iridescent morning light. It drops slowly, then slices the surface and disappears. I stand up on the rock and watch the quivering water in its wake.

  *

  I hear the sound of Sindre’s voice as I slip my key back into the lock. He’s laughing. I twist the key with a soft click, and he doesn’t hear me enter. I stand a moment in the space between the bathroom and the bedroom, next to the softly purring minibar.

  ‘So, what are you doing today?’ There is something flirtatious in my husband’s voice. Just then, he glances up and sees me standing there, holding Dinky Bear to my chest. He presses a button on his phone and slips it into his pocket before whoever he was talking to has a chance to respond.

  ‘That was Espen,’ he says. I stare at him, hard. ‘He called to wish us a Merry Christmas.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Come here,’ he says, reaching his arms out to me like a needy baby. I ignore him and cross the room. I stand on the balcony, watching the brilliant sun rise above the horizon and imagine the dolphin out there, the dolphin that was another sign from my daughter.

  ‘Hey you,’ says Sindre, sidling up behind me and placing a heavy, warm hand on the small of my back, inside the hoodie. ‘What’s got into you?’

  ‘Can I see your phone?’ I say. I’m not sure who’s more surprised; Sindre or me. My husband holds my gaze without flinching, but there is something hard and mocking in his eyes.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘I’m totally serious, Sindre,’ I say, keeping my voice level and calm.

  ‘No,’ he says.

  ‘No? Are you serious?’ I hold my hand out, but Sindre doesn’t even look at it – he’s looking out at the ocean, carefully rearranging his features into his practiced, resigned sadness. I flush hot with fury, the skin at the back of my neck pricking uncomfortably, but I’m not going to back down now.

  ‘Is this the kind of relationship you want, Ali? I thought what makes us strong is the trust between us.’

  ‘What made us strong,’ I say and he has the decency to flinch at the past tense. ‘Nothing is strong anymore.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying I want you to show me your phone.’

  ‘No. Ali, you’re acting crazy. Completely fucking paranoid. I don’t know what’s gotten into you—’

  ‘You don’t know what’s gotten into me? It’s Christmas morning, Sindre. I couldn’t sleep so I went down to the beach. I spoke to Amalie there, our daughter, and as I did, a huge dolphin came out of the water, so close it splashed me with sea water, and there wasn’t even the smallest doubt in my mind that somehow it was a sign, that she’d sent it, it was too beautiful to be just nothing, and then I come back here to share that moment with you and you’re on the fucking phone, laughing and fooling around, and now you won’t let me see it and then you have the fucking nerve to say that I’m acting crazy?’ I’ve raised my voice and it’s so loud it hollers around the hotel atrium enclosing the pool. When I stop, Sindre and I stare at each other, his eyes narrowed into slits, mine streaming. Then my husband turns and walks away without a word.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Iselin

  ‘Faster,’ says Kaia, and when I turn around to look at her, she laughs and claps her gloved hands together in glee. The new sled with a steering wheel and chiming metal streamers shines in the bright, cold sunlight. I tug on the string and drag Kaia up the last bit of the little hill and then I position the sled before climbing onto the seat behind her, reaching around her to grab the wheel. Noa takes a picture of us on her phone, then returns to texting.

  ‘Uh oh!’ screams Kaia, and then we set off, both of us whooping and laughing as we shoot down the hill on the best, fastest sleigh money can buy. Again and again we go, and as we horse around, I feel a joy so easy and pure I can’t remember ever having felt it before. Ever since I came up with the plan, my moods have been much better, and I’ve experienced a kind of optimism I’d forgotten existed. As a kid, I used to have that kind of positive mindset, the can-do attitude; I had to, to get away from Svartberget, but I guess year after year of hospital life and poverty wore away at me.

  I drag Kaia on the sled back up the hill and then Noa takes over. I jump from foot to foot against the cold and watch my sister and daughter hurtle down the long, icy hill. My phone vibrates in my pocket. Another sale. Since the article in Se Her ran at the beginning of the week, we’ve been inundated – both by well-wishers and buyers. I’ve sold another three drawings, bringing it to a total of nineteen, meaning I’ve earned more in a week than I did in a month on public assistance.

  It’s not even three o’clock when the light begins to fade to a pasty pink and we start to walk back to the apartment, Kaia skipping merrily ahead. I worry, sometimes, that she over-exerts herself, but the doctors at Rikshospitalet have assured me that she can do as much as most other children, as long as she feels able to.

  *

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ says Noa, keeping her voice low so Kaia won’t hear. ‘Now that Kaia is improving and you’re selling pictures, couldn’t you think about coming back to Paris? You could re-apply to your course, you’d get full state student funding from Lånekassen, it would be enough for a little apartment near us, we could—’

  ‘Noa,’ I say. ‘Not now. Let’s not get too carried away. Kaia will need medical attention for years to come.’


  ‘But—’

  ‘Shh.’

  ‘Iselin, you really are talented. It would be a shame not to pursue this.’

  ‘I said, shh. I don’t want to talk about this now.’ But inside, I make note to ask Dr Harari about whether traveling with Kaia is even a possibility. We reach our road, which is gray and gloomy-looking in the weak December light, and I push away thoughts of me and Kaia wandering through the narrow streets of Île Saint-Louis, stunned by all the beauty, laughing together.

  *

  The fireworks wake Kaia twice, and she takes a long while to settle down again.

  ‘Is it the future now?’ she asks groggily as I lower her back onto her pillow and kiss her hair.

  ‘Yep. Welcome to 2019,’ I whisper, but she’s already asleep.

  *

  Kaia and I wave Noa off as the airport train slides away from the platform in a blur of icy rain, all three of us in tears. It’s hard to let her go, but I’ve entered this new year with a quiet optimism. Noa planted a seed in my mind when she tried to talk me into returning to Paris and continuing my studies. If the doctors said it was possible, and if I got a job to build some real savings, and if I kept selling drawings, I could do pretty much anything.

  I place Kaia in front of an old re-run of Full House and am about to start the dreary task of tidying up the clutter and chaos of Christmas and New Year, when Kaia turns to me and says, ‘Mamma, where’s my granny who talks like them?’ She nods at the Americans on television. Sweetheart, please believe me, you did the right thing, says a sexy young John Stamos in his drawn-out, smooth Californian drawl.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I say.

  ‘My granny. The one who talks like that.’

  ‘Honey, your granny lives in Nordland and she definitely doesn’t talk like that.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘There was a visiting doctor at the hospital. Just after you had your surgery. She was a little older and had an American accent. Maybe you’re thinking of her?’

  ‘Maybe,’ says Kaia and lets her eyes slide back to the screen.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Alison

  It’s evening and Sindre is in the bedroom, packing for our return to Norway tomorrow. I’m in the shower, letting the warm water rinse away the grains of sand and the dried sweat and whiff of chlorine on my skin. I picture Sindre walking outside onto the balcony, looking out at the darkening sky and the gently rippling purple ocean, shaking out beach towels, absentmindedly stroking the sunburned patch on his forehead, lost in thoughts.

  It would be difficult to say that we’ve had a nice time in Mexico, but in spite of the bad start, we have at least been able to be together, putting on a show of reading by the pool in the mornings, eating lunch with several margaritas at one of the cute little restaurants in the town, before strolling on the beach in the afternoons. I dropped the issue of the phone and whoever he was communicating with; I just don’t have the energy to let my mind run wild with torturous thoughts of my husband with someone else. Besides, he is here, with me.

  Let’s just stay here, I have whispered night after night, resting my head on Sindre’s chest – the closest we have come in many months. Every time I’ve said it, he’s grown slightly rigid, exhaling slowly. And do what? Abandon my son and open a smoothie shack? I’ve dropped it then, but inside, a part of me thinks – yes.

  *

  Sindre looks disheveled and exhausted; puffy bags and dark shadows have gathered underneath his eyes, and the gray-specked stubble I once found sexy now just adds to his unkempt appearance. He drives slowly from the airport; the roads are icy, and I angle my body slightly away from him, staring out the window, drawing my woolen cardigan tight against the cold.

  We sit silently for a while in the car in our driveway, watching our home in the brilliant January sunshine. On the plane we talked about what it would be like to come home, how it might feel good, but I didn’t believe it even then. I feel consumed by the need to keep moving, to travel and take myself out of the constrictions of my life here in Oslo with Sindre and Oliver – the endless monotony of it, my lack of friends, my suddenly lost and hollow marriage, the hole in my heart…

  ‘We can just leave,’ I whisper to him again. ‘Turn back around and see where the road takes us. You and me, babe. We don’t have to do this…’ Sindre stares at me, then laughs a little, but in his eyes are tears.

  ‘You and me, babe,’ he repeats, but there is something hollow in his voice – like he no longer believes it.

  Sindre is out the door in his running gear less than five minutes after we arrive home and I stand at the kitchen window watching him dash into the forest like a startled deer. I drink tequila we brought home with a splash of orange juice, but it doesn’t take the edge off my nerves, it just makes me feel sick, so I take a Valium. For a while, I sit at the breakfast bar, riding out waves of nausea, closing my eyes, trying to summon to mind the soft, ochre sand in Sayulita, the soothing crash of the waves, how I felt a profound sense of peace there. When I get up from the stool, bile rises in my throat and I don’t even make it to the bathroom, throwing up a vile splash of tequila and stomach acid on the kitchen floor.

  I spend the afternoon drifting aimlessly from room to room under the pretense of unpacking and tidying, but after several hours my suitcase is only half empty. Just before four o’clock, Oliver comes home, shutting the front door softly behind him, waiting in the hallway to see if anyone is home.

  ‘Hey you,’ I say, wrapping my arms around him. ‘I’ve missed you.’

  ‘I’ve missed you too. You’re so brown!’ He looks taller than just two weeks ago, and I realize that what I said is true: I have missed him. A thin line of fuzzy blond hair has appeared on his upper lip, and I wonder whether he’s trying to grow it into a mustache. I remember him as the little boy he was the first time I met him, when Sindre and I had been together for a year and I came back to Norway with him at the end of his final tour. He was only four, and I was immediately taken with him. I had never particularly wanted to become a mother, probably because I hadn’t met anyone I wanted to have children with. I was well into my thirties when I met Sindre, and thought I’d left it too late. My focus had been firmly on my career and my freedom to travel the world. It wasn’t until I saw Sindre with his son that I realized I did want to have children – with him – so I unpacked the little suitcase I’d dragged behind me around the world for a decade and stayed in Norway. I long for it now, that battered case which had held most of my possessions for so many years. It’s in the attic somewhere, and I could easily bring it downstairs, fill it with a few things and walk out the door. What would I take?

  I’m not attached to many things, but I would pack Dinky Bear and Amalie’s pillowcase. I’d bring my favorite picture of the four of us together: Sindre, me, Oliver, and Amalie. It was taken last Easter in the Old Town of Rhodes when I still had everything. We’re standing close together, squinting at the sun, Amalie perched on Sindre’s arm. We’re all wearing white and look like one giant, strange, smiling being.

  ‘Where’s Pappa?’ Oliver looks at me oddly and I realize my face is scrunched up in a grimace. I smile at him but he doesn’t return it.

  ‘He’s gone to Meny to pick up some stuff for dinner.’

  ‘Oh. I’m, uh, going to head back out again in a bit.’

  ‘Will you be home for dinner?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’m… I’m meeting my… girlfriend.’

  ‘Girlfriend? Oh, wow, Oliver. You haven’t told me about this! How exciting!’

  He smiles ruefully. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How long have you been seeing her? What’s her name? Is she nice?’

  ‘Of course she’s nice,’ he says and we both laugh. ‘Her name is Celine and she’s a year above me in school. We’ve been together since August.’

  ‘August?’

  He nods, uncomfortably.

  ‘But why haven’t you told me?’

  ‘Uh…’

  ‘O
f course I understand, sweetie. Don’t worry about it. I’m so happy for you.’ He nods again and begins to fill his backpack with stuff from various jacket pockets and shelves in the hallway: gum, headphones, a fifty-kroner bill, bus card, gloves. I stroke his arm awkwardly and he turns around in the doorway and gives me another quick hug. I wave him off, watching him walk across the courtyard space we share with the neighbors, down the gravel path that leads to the road to Frognerseteren, then disappearing from view.

  In the kitchen I pour another tequila, despite what happened earlier. I can hardly bear to sip from it, but I force it down. I sit at the window, looking out over the city, the last twilight-blue sky fading into black across the fjord, Oslo’s myriad lights twinkling. Oliver is out there somewhere, just being a kid, meeting his girl, laughing and flirting. All the months since Amalie left us, he has been hiding this part of his life. It hurts to think of all the moments he would have had, away from the stunning blackness that has devoured our family; he would have kissed Celine, shared jokes with her, goofed around, searched for silly emojis to represent his teenage affection. I should be happy for him; I know that Oliver mourns his sister deeply, but I can’t bear the thought that life moves on, that the world doesn’t break apart without her.

  *

  Woozy, I lie down on the bed. The room is spinning and I am humming a melody I don’t recognize. A strange noise penetrates my cushy, dream-like state. It’s a phone vibrating somewhere in the room, but it’s not my phone, because my phone is in my hand and I was going to scroll mindlessly through Instagram until I pass out. I stand up again but my stomach flutters, then rolls. I worry I’ll be sick again, onto the bed. How disgusting would that be? Is that what I’ve become? I take a few deep breaths and swallow hard, trying to locate the sound. The phone is in the back pocket of Sindre’s jeans, which he wore on our journey back and flung into a corner of the room before he went to Meny. If that’s even where he’s gone. I slide the bar on the touch screen to unlock it, but a code request pops up. This is new. Still, I can read the first line of the WhatsApp message, from someone named Mia.