The woman was tall and slender with her blond hair tied in a long, loose ponytail that rested on one shoulder. She was wearing a skirt and blouse—office wear—but was relaxed, wearing comfortable shoes and not excessively elegant. She looked nice, Jeanette thought, with her old and rarely utilised eye for looks.

But who was she? For some reason, that woman who was now disappearing behind a car by the School Gate in the city wall meant something to Jeanette—she could feel it. But in what way?

She reappeared momentarily, before turning right to go through the gate onto Södra Murgatan, and shortly after that she was gone for good. Jeanette let her gaze rest on the point where the woman had disappeared, while her brain worked to get to the bottom of who she was.

“You’re a long way away, Jen,” said Lubbi, who seemed to have kept her under constant watch since the accident a few days before.

It was in that moment that she realised who the woman was. Of course—how could she have forgotten? Granted, she was more out of it than she had thought, which explained her relatively good mood, and the fact that it didn’t leave her now that she was thinking about things that she had been making an effort to forget.

“Did you see someone you knew?” Nanna asked as she paced back and forth just behind the bench on which Jeanette, Lubbi, and the brawler, Micki, were sitting.

“Not exactly,” Jeanette replied, still unable to draw her gaze away.

“An old lover?” Lubbi suggested.

Jeanette returned to the constricting reality around her and saw Nanna slap him on the shoulder and give him a stern look. But for some reason Lubbi’s question didn’t bother her. The sense of unease didn’t take hold of her conscience, and the blond woman’s appearance didn’t hurt either. Jeanette refused to let go of this exhilaration she felt in her body—she wanted to continue being at the centre of her friends’ attention and being watched by devoted eyes. And hearing her own voice.

Yes, that was exactly how it was. She wanted to talk and be taken seriously, in the same way as she had been when she had collapsed on the path after being hit in the face by a pointy elbow. When she had lost herself in bittersweet memories and felt the combined support of her friends in her new life. This was why she replied honestly to Lubbi’s coarse question:

“My old lover’s wife.”

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to talk about these things while so inebriated, but there were greater forces within her encouraging her to go the other way.

“The one you gave everything . . . up for?” Lubbi guessed with a degree of sensitivity in his voice that hadn’t been there a moment before.

“You remember?” Jeanette smiled at him.

“Of course.” Lubbi smiled back. “You loved him and I love love. So was that his wife? You don’t really know her?”