SEVERAL HOURS AFTER Jeanette had left her, Kerstin was pacing back and forth in the flat with a really bad feeling in her body. The feeling that she wasn’t good enough, the feeling of having all the dials turned up, of being too much. Clingy, as Jeanette had put it. It was downright painful. Like a bad conscience, it was impossible to wriggle free from it, impossible to push it to one side and take a breather.

Kerstin tried to read, watched some TV, cooked, ate, played games on her mobile—but it wouldn’t go away. She couldn’t concentrate on anything. The joy at the day’s exploits was unable to penetrate through the din of negative and irrelevant emotions. What did it matter how Jeanette dealt with the knowledge that it was Kerstin’s husband she had left to die in the car wreck once upon a time? How could it ever be Kerstin’s problem to arrange a soft landing for Jeanette after she found that out? If Jeanette wanted to torture herself, then let her. She could just as well let the curses whistle past her if that was the way she wanted it.

Kerstin tried to persuade herself. But she wasn’t disposed that way. She wanted the people around her to feel good, and it was most unsatisfying that she personally had some responsibility for Jeanette’s emotional about-turn. She knew full well that the problem was founded upon Jeanette’s obstinacy rather than Kerstin herself. But if anyone had it in them to break the deadlock inside Jeanette, it was Kerstin. Perhaps it was presumptuous to think like that, especially given Jeanette’s harsh parting words, but Kerstin needed to rise above that kind of thing. Despite the fact that Jeanette was an arch-egoist, incapable of pulling herself together even though Kerstin had been magnanimous and had forgiven her, it was probably best for now to put Jeanette first and deprioritise her own emotional needs—such as not wanting to be seen as excessively pushy.

It was around midnight when she decided to stroll over to Jeanette’s flat, force her way in, and refuse to climb down in the face of harsh words and outright insults. She was going to stay with Jeanette until she had softened and become more reasonable. She would prevent her from continuing in her downward spiral and from harming herself, if it was really going that far.