The Boy at the Door Read online

  My thoughts are interrupted by the door shutting downstairs and the sound of Johan kicking his shoes off.

  ‘Cecilia,’ he calls, and though I have been expecting him, I feel suddenly thrown by the prospect of seeing him, and what I’m about to say. ‘Hey, babe,’ he says, walking into the room. ‘You ready?’ I swallow hard a couple of times, and stand up from my chair by the bay windows. I nod.

  In the car, I feel as though my thoughts are running wild, and my heart is beating so hard I check my pulse with my fingertips several times; it feels as though I’ll have a seizure. Johan asks if I’m okay every few minutes. I nod and stare out the window at the early afternoon traffic moving freely towards the E18 motorway. It’s almost completely dark and it’s not yet three p.m. The longer I wait, the chances are I won’t manage to tell him before we get to Tønsberg, and I have to tell him now, before someone else does.

  ‘I... I have to tell you something,’ I say, and just like I knew he would, Johan’s face takes on his serious and concerned expression which makes him look like he’s eight years old.

  ‘Okay. Are you okay, honey? You seem agitated. I know it’s been hard on you, that Tobias...’

  ‘Johan, I know who Tobias’s parents are.’ A stunned silence follows and Johan fixes his gaze on a lorry in front of us, as though hypnotized.

  ‘But... but they said the Lucasson lady definitely wasn’t biologically related to Tobias,’ he says. ‘They haven’t been able to connect Tobias to anyone else, have they?’

  ‘I’m Tobias’s mother,’ I say, but my voice comes out barely a whisper.

  ‘Cecilia... you need to stop this now. He’s gone. But they will find him a mother, I’m sure of it...’ Johan removes his hand from where it was on the wheel, and tries to take mine from my lap, but I pull it away aggressively.

  ‘Listen to me, goddammit! I am telling you that I’m Tobias’s mother and that is a fucking fact!’

  ‘Did you take your pill?’ says Johan, face still open and kind and concerned.

  ‘Tobias is my son!’ A thick vein appears on Johan’s neck and pulsates ominously. He drives faster than usual, faster than he should in the dark on icy roads. But he doesn’t say anything.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, over and over. We exit off the motorway and only moments later we are parked outside the psych ward.

  ‘You do realize that you’re going back in there, don’t you?’ says Johan.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What you are saying is beyond crazy, Cecilia. It’s completely insane! Don’t you think I might notice if we’d suddenly had another baby?’

  ‘You need to listen to me. He’s not yours. And I am so sorry for hurting you, and I hope there is some way we can work through this...’ Johan interrupts me by slamming his hand down on the steering wheel incredibly hard, and this startles me because Johan is never angry.

  ‘Cecilia, shut up for a moment, okay? Just shut up. Listen to me. You need to stop, right now, with this crazy talk. If you talk like that when you get inside to Dr Nielsen, she’s going to lock you up and throw away the key.’

  ‘No, you need to listen to what I’m saying!’

  ‘Stop,’ says Johan, so sternly I actually comply. ‘Please, please, listen to me, for your own sake. For the sakes of our children. You will be detained here, in this place, if you tell the doctors what you just said to me. Do you comprehend that?’ I shake my head. ‘You’re not Tobias’s mother, Cecilia. That is crazy babble. Now, please tell me, did you take your pill?’

  *

  They won’t let me go. Which is illegal, and I’m going to fucking sue this hellhole for incompetence and violation of basic human rights as soon as I get out of here, which will most likely be tomorrow, when Tobias’s DNA results have been processed and everybody knows that I’m his mother.

  ‘The erratic behavior has escalated again today,’ Johan told Dr Nielsen. ‘Disjointed tirades, obvious inconsistencies, twisted reality, that kind of thing.’ Dr Nielsen wrote something in her book as Johan spoke. I chose to not respond to anything Johan said, telling Dr Nielsen I’d happily tell her everything once my treacherous husband had gone home. And, now, a whole day has passed, and I’m still here and nobody has come to hear what I have to say. It is obvious to me that they are giving me some other medication, because holding on to my thoughts is as difficult as it would be to pick up a droplet of water.

  It is snowing again today and apparently I’m supposed to entertain myself for hours on end in my claustrophobic room, angry and medicated. Some well-meaning soul has left some magazines behind and I’m rifling through one when there is a sharp knock at the door. It is Inspector Ellefsen accompanied by Dr Nielsen. After inquiring about my general well-being and so on (fucking fabulous), Inspector Ellefsen draws up a chair and sits down next to the bed I’m in. Dr Nielsen hovers by the door, but seems to have no intention to leave.

  ‘If you feel well enough, could we have a quick chat, Cecilia?’

  ‘Never felt better. What do you want to discuss?’

  ‘Considering recent events and some preliminary evidence, I would like to informally question you about Annika Lucasson’s murder.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘You mean the drug addict?’

  ‘Mrs Wilborg, there are some fairly substantial inconsistencies in the account you told us previously. While some parts undeniably seem true, there are other parts I just can’t make sense of.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘You say you’ve never met Annika Lucasson. Is that correct?’

  I need to think, but my mind is like a dense, slippery stone in rushing water. ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘And yet, Tobias maintains that you two know each other. He insists you were friends.’

  ‘Friends! Hah. That’s crazy. But no, to answer your question, I didn’t know her.’

  ‘You asked us to run a DNA test to determine whether Tobias could be your biological son. We’ve done this and naturally cross-checked the DNA with what we recovered in the Lucasson case.’ Ellefsen pauses a long moment, looking up at me wryly from underneath his bushy eyebrows. I make my expression completely empty – a skill I’ve honed over the years. I stare straight ahead, focusing on the blue-and-white flowers on the washed-out duvet cover. I will tears to my eyes, but it isn’t easy to cry on command in spite of my nerves and the strange situation.

  Finally, I feel them sting and look up at Dr Nielsen, and then Inspector Ellefsen, pleading. ‘Inspector Ellefsen, could you please confirm the results of the DNA tests?’

  ‘I am afraid I am unable to do that at this point.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because recent developments in this case have led us to reassess the nature of the investigation.’

  ‘Yes, well, I know that I am.’

  ‘I appreciate that you have had a tumultuous time recently, and I certainly hope your condition will improve... When it does, I will need to bring you into the station for further questioning.’

  ‘Questioning for what?’

  ‘For the murder of Annika Lucasson.’

  ‘Like I’ve already told you, I’ve never met the woman.’

  ‘And yet, your DNA was underneath the deceased’s fingernails. It was the only clear DNA evidence we were able to secure from the body.’

  ‘I won’t say another word without a lawyer present.’

  ‘That’s fine, Mrs Wilborg. I’ll confer with Dr Nielsen about when she anticipates you to be well enough to leave, and I shall see you in Sandefjord.’

  16

  I could make a run for it. Perhaps I’d make it out of here – after all, people have done it before, and as far as I know, they can’t convict me of murder just because my DNA was found underneath Anni’s fingernails. I could go back to Punta del Este; I’ve heard Uruguay is lenient with the criminally pursued. Or maybe I could go to Miami, where DJSoulo would appear to live now, judging by his Instagram account. I could find him, and... And what? I ask myself. I study DJSoulo’s face intently, alone in the
downstairs lounge, after they finally let me come home tonight, two days after Ellefsen came to see me. Johan has finally, reluctantly, gone to bed, like I’m some irrational child that needs to be watched over. Meanwhile, DJSoulo is out there, posting on social media, living his life, now presumably fully knowing he once fathered a child with a stranger, and he doesn’t care. Like me, before. I’ve been trying to pinpoint the exact moment that something changed, the moment I let it slip and began to take apart the walls I’d so meticulously built up.

  I could get in the car right now, and go to my father on the farm. I can practically see it in my mind; the long driveway from the main road north from Munkfors, the rambling old farmhouse, the black lake at the bottom of the hill, the old, brown horses my father likes to keep in the field, the stern pine trees surrounding the farm as dark and isolating as an ocean to an island. I can see myself stumbling from the car, paranoid and desperate, into my father’s arms, and he’d fix everything. Like the last time. No. I can never go back there; not now, not after what I did to him. And to Tobias... He’d turn me away, make me get back in the car, driving into the night, a lone fugitive.

  I could stay here and maintain my innocence. I can blame any inconsistencies in my story on my newfound mental illness, and everyone knows there’s no point arguing with someone who only just escaped the psych ward. I return to the images of DJSoulo on the screen, scrolling through his Instagram posts aimlessly, compulsively, as though I might suddenly uncover something that would make a difference in this hot mess. He looks like a nice man, and that is also how I remember him from the half hour we knew each other. There is warmth in his eyes – a certain air of reliability, and he looks like he has a sense of humor, judging by the occasional witty captions on his posts. It would seem he has friends, and a girlfriend, too; in several of the images he is posing with a slim brunette with a toothy grin who gazes up at him adoringly. I pore over the pictures for some clue to why he never responded to my email, but my mind flits back to my father, the farm, and the last time we met.

  *

  When I became pregnant with Nicoline, I knew within two weeks of her conception. My body hadn’t yet begun to change on the outside, but the changes within were noticeable from very early on. My moods, which have always been volatile, started to alternate between jet-black and completely blank. My breasts felt tender and swollen, and my mouth tasted of metal, as though I’d just sucked on a rusty nail. I felt constantly nauseated; not bad enough to need to throw up, but as though I’d just smelled something violently unpleasant. After the pregnancy, however, around the time we went to Uruguay, when I was struggling to recover control over my body, many of these symptoms were still present. A persistent taste of metal remained, I’d often feel phantom kicks from my womb, I carried excessive weight I could not find the motivation to get rid of and not even a cocktail of antidepressants could keep my depression at bay. This was the state I was in at the time Tobias was conceived, and bearing this in mind, it is perhaps not so strange that I didn’t understand that I was pregnant again until far beyond the point when one can legally end a pregnancy.

  I shut the computer. I want a moment, just one moment’s break from the thoughts jostling for space in my tired head. The thought of lying down to sleep next to Johan after everything that has been happening is impossible. I consider sleeping in one of the guest rooms, but this unrest I feel isn’t a need for sleep. My mind is still muddled from the medication I have to take, and I’m not sure what it is that I want or need. Usually, I’d pour myself a large glass of wine and sit in the dark by the bay windows, watching the hushed, silent town outside. I can’t mix alcohol with the new anti-psychosis drug I’m on, apparently under any circumstances, and so I am just standing here, in the quiet night, in the middle of the floor. I decide to tidy.

  The thing about a home like mine is that I’ve always felt it has to be presented to the very highest standards. People aspire to achieve my kind of housekeeping. This is not the kind of house where flowers hang their heads, or where clouds of dust gather in corners, or where a visitor might open a kitchen drawer and find piles of old receipts and bits of broken utensils. I suppose not everyone is able to keep a home the way I do, in part because they have less impressive spaces to work with, and in part because they just don’t have my eye. This house is always full of people, because Johan and I are a sociable kind of couple. I’m not sure whether it is subconscious or intentional, but I always notice that my guests study the house, and the food, and that day’s floral displays carefully, taking note. And then, when I go to Cathrine’s or Silje’s or Fie’s, wouldn’t you believe that there’s always a new detail, stolen from my own home? A violet orchid, a new metallic Missoni throw I bought first, a fine Nebbiolo only available by special order, first served at my table. This doesn’t make me angry, exactly; it just makes me a bit exasperated sometimes that I’m not fortunate enough to be surrounded by inspirational people.

  The problem, if you could call it that, is that most people don’t know what it takes to create a well-thought-out ambience. You can’t just buy the candlesticks of the moment or plonk a marble island in the middle of your kitchen or buy violet flowers because Cecilia Wilborg buys them and so they must be great. Oh no. You have to have a strategy. Every morning I inspect Luelle’s cleaning and tidying after the children have left for school. It is obvious to me that certain aspects of housekeeping are very different from a Filipino point of view, but I suppose you can’t expect an au pair to understand the kind of strategy we’re talking here. Most days, for example, I have to take a few moments to turn all the cups in the cupboard so their handles face outwards, ready to be picked up. Luelle wouldn’t think to do that. She thinks it’s enough to take them from the dishwasher and place them in the cupboards.

  We make ourselves busy for so many reasons, don’t we? Tonight I fear long moments looking out onto the town, the sea, the black sky. I think of last summer when the rat that plagued us suddenly disappeared. The poison must have finally got him after all that time. I found myself missing the ritual of checking for the overnight damage he’d done to my fruit. I begin to organize all the cupboards, though they are already so tidy that it’s a matter of running my fingers along neatly ordered shelves, trying to find a speck of dust. I find one of Tobias’s Pokémon cards underneath a box of Cheerios, slightly crooked, as if loved a lot and kept in a jeans pocket. I crush it and throw it in the bin, then take it back out and place it on top of some newspapers in the recycling bin, then pick it up again, smooth it out and put it in my back pocket. How can you miss someone you never wanted so much? I wish there were some dirty dishes or some laundry to wash or books to order alphabetically, but everything is beautifully in its place and this makes me irrationally angry. Am I supposed to just sit here thinking? I pour ammonia into a bucket, letting the smell a little too deep into my lungs, and head back downstairs to begin scrubbing the washroom tiles.

  The scent of the cleaning products throws me straight back to that strange, unmistakable metallic taste from my pregnancies. I can’t seem to escape the memories of that second pregnancy tonight – the one that wasn’t supposed to happen. Some incompetent postnatal nurse told me that I was highly unlikely to conceive again while I was breastfeeding, but it’s not like Johan and I had been at it like bunnies since the terrible experience of becoming parents had happened to us. Every time he so much as insinuated he might appreciate some form of sexual interaction, I’d swat his hand away and turn towards the wall. It wasn’t until we’d been in South America for a while that some remnant of the old me began to resurface, and as Tobias is a living reminder, the reappearance of my sexual feelings did not benefit my husband, but rather a Cuban DJ.

  I thought the stay in Uruguay had done us a world of good, and that I’d gotten away with my one little indiscretion. By the time we returned to Norway six weeks later, Johan and I were coping marginally better with life as new parents. We’d begun speaking normally to each other again, rather than
merely grunting instructions through gritted teeth, avoiding each other’s bloodshot eyes. Nicoline, too, had settled into being a fairly content baby. And yet, several of the physical sides of the pregnancy I’d so loathed lingered on. I remember one morning, around three months after we’d returned from our holiday, when Nicoline was eight months old. It was early summer, and I woke up feeling strong and a little more like myself. I sat up, listening to the chirping of birds from outside, drawing crisp, fragrant air into my lungs, when I suddenly felt a sharp tug from within my stomach. I instinctively placed my hand on the spot I’d felt this strange rumble, so like the somersaults Nicoline had enjoyed subjecting me to when it was her I carried. My skin felt taut, and I remember wondering whether it could be that my body was finally beginning to tighten naturally after so many months of podgy, loose skin.

  A few weeks later, I was at Cornelia’s house for a dinner party with the girls. I kept lifting my champagne glass to my mouth and lowering it again, unable to take even a single sip. I was wearing a dowdy kaftan dress to disguise the fact that I hadn’t managed to lose much of the weight; in fact, it seemed to me that I may even have put more on. I jealously studied Silje, who was also breastfeeding at the time, and she had the body I had fully expected to have immediately restored to me after birth; skinny, angular, almost boyish, were it not for her not-so-real large D-cups. That was what I’d looked like before, and what I’d just assumed I’d snap back to after expelling the alien child that had made me a fat, depressive wreck. And yet, there I was, most likely the laughing stock of the tennis club – perfect Cecilia, not so perfect anymore in her elasticated tights, floaty kaftan and bloated, prematurely aged face.

  The day after the dinner party was the day when everything went to hell. To this day, I cannot remember ever returning to the memories of those desperate moments when I set everything that happened later into motion; it was as though I was acting on pure instinct. I scrub harder, trying to keep my mind sharp, accepting that they are coming now, those memories. I run an old toothbrush along the satisfyingly dirty grouting behind the tumble dryer, forcing myself to breathe slowly into the pit of my stomach, like Dr Nielsen taught me.