Page 44 of Hidden in Memories
In a way it feels as if she’s talking to herself as much as to Filip. You can’t shape your life according to what other people want. That won’t make anyone happy.
She hears a young woman’s voice in the background. It sounds like Emily—she says they have to go because they’ve booked a table.
“So what do you think I should tell the journalist?” Filip wonders.
Hanna hesitates; she would really like to advise him not to do it. The reporter is probably after a sob story. If Filip does the interview then regrets it, he will feel even worse.
Then again, he’s an adult. He has to make up his own mind.
“Maybe you should wait a little while until you’ve processed what’s happened?” she says with some trepidation. “It can’t be that urgent. But it’s your decision, of course.”
32
The temperature is unexpectedly mild when Tiina takes Zelda out for an afternoon walk. The dog skips along happily as they head for the forest trail that is their usual route.
The thought that the girls don’t want to come home for Easter brings tears to Tiina’s eyes. She has just spoken to Andrea, and her daughter’s words are still ringing in her ears.
We just can’t handle it anymore.
They won’t come as long as Ogge is there. They can’t cope with his drinking and mood swings. Tiina is only fooling herself when she hopes it will pass. That the relationship between her husband and the girls will one day be warm and loving.
He hasn’t had an easy life, she reminds herself—as so many times before. Ogge didn’t grow up in a calm, safe home like her daughters did. His father was never in the picture, and they have no contact. In fact Ogge has never met him—not once.
In the foster home where he spent his teenage years, he was treated in ways that would be regarded as child abuse these days.
Tiina takes the narrow path that winds through the trees. The snow sinks beneath her feet. At the beginning of March, the higher temperatures consumed the snow cover, but over the last couple of weeks, it has both snowed and frozen hard again.
And today it is thawing.
She really misses her girls. Maybe she could compromise, catch the train to go and see them on Easter Sunday? What would happen if she told Ogge she wanted to spend a few days with them?
Tiina isn’t sure why she’s so nervous about bringing it up, but the fear kicks in as soon as they have different views on anything. It makes her feel anxious and insecure.
Last night he didn’t even need to raise his voice for her stomach to flip.
She buries her chin in her scarf and plods along to catch up with Zelda, who is busy investigating interesting smells.
Tiina has never been able to put into words what it is that frightens her so much when Ogge gets mad. Why the fear races through her belly like a stream of cold water when he becomes argumentative and gets that expression in his eyes.
He has never hit her. Ogge has never been violent, never so much as raised a hand to her or the girls. He is kind to children, and loves his dog more than anything in the world.
And yet it only takes a look for Tiina to fall silent.
Sometimes she wonders if that’s what used to happen in his terrible foster home. If that was where he learned to shut up after a single glance, because he knew that otherwise he would be punished with a hard leather belt against his skin.
Is he repeating the same pattern as an adult, but without the physical violence?
Tiina can’t really explain how they’ve ended up here, but as soon as Ogge becomes the least bit quarrelsome, she is petrified. The aggression is just below the surface; it feels as if he could explode at any moment, and when he drinks it’s even worse. Then it’s like living with a human pressure cooker, with the feeling that disaster is lurking only secondsaway. It’s as if the dreadful events of his childhood are just waiting to be let out.
Now, after fifteen years together, she wishes she had behaved differently when they first got together. She should have given him an ultimatum, insisted that he had counseling to deal with his mood swings. Not allowed him to self-medicate with booze.
Back then she was in love and naive; she believed that her love could heal him. Instead things have gotten worse, he has become more introverted and brooding.
Bitter.
Zelda comes running with a stick in her mouth. Ogge would do anything for that dog. Sometimes, when the situation is particularly bad, Tiina wonders if her husband prefers Zelda to her.
She pats the dog’s head and praises her, then Zelda scampers away again.
