‘I am sorry, Kristina.’ Eirik comes over to my side of the bed and squats down beside me. ‘Pass on my love to Camilla and the kids. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. I love you.’ He presses his lips to my forehead, and I catch a whiff of his familiar cologne, the same he’s used since his student days, when we met: Fahrenheit by Christian Dior, and for some reason this brings more tears to my eyes. He rushes from the room and I imagine him stepping into a shiny party car pulled up outside the building, his mind razor sharp and trained on the day ahead. He has an ability to completely compartmentalize his career from the rest of his life and never lets anything impact his work. I think it is because he lost his mother in childhood and became accustomed to closing off parts of himself and his feelings for protection. For several minutes after he’s gone, his scent clings to the air in our bedroom and I close my eyes, though I know I won’t get any more sleep.

*

We walk down to the soggy, deserted beach, stopping for the kids to jump in every single puddle. I make myself smile at them and say all the right things when they rush over to where I’m standing with Camilla under a giant oak tree to show us some trinket or another, but inside it feels like I could fall to pieces just looking at my niece and nephew. What hurts so much is taking in their impossible sweetness; it’s like being taunted by everything I don’t have.

I zone out from the long story Camilla is telling me about the audacity of her awful colleague and try to allow those feelings – they may feel like a numb, impenetrable kind of nothingness, but that is never the case. I remind myself that if I was one of my own clients, I would feel so much empathy for the woman standing on this beach watching those beautiful children play.

Also, I suppose I’m still a little upset that Eirik didn’t come with me, though it’s nice for Camilla and me to have this rare time together, just the two of us and the kids. Her husband, Mikkel, decided to go on an overnight fishing trip when I explained Eirik couldn’t make it, giving Camilla and me some ‘sister time’.

‘Look!’ screams Vilja, holding up a chewed stick triumphantly.

‘Wow,’ I say.