I hear a sound, footsteps approaching. Eirik appears in the doorway, his face red with exertion and the biting cold. In his right hand is a thick coil of blue rope, in his left the pickax. I try to smile at my husband, because I am terrified by the look in his eyes. I want him to look at me the way he usually does, with adoration and awe. You’re my crown jewel, he always says. He loves me so deeply; he always says it and shows it in a million ways, but could it be that Leah was right, that he treats me like a queen, but a queen in a game of chess? Is his love about him and how it makes him look and feel, not about me? Could it be that she was right, that I deserve better? His eyes are empty of love now. They are distant and haunted, like he’s been pursued all the way back up the hillside. I realize again that I’m afraid of him.

He watches me from the doorway with those cold eyes.

‘Hey you,’ I say, shrinking back into the sofa, making myself look vulnerable, which of course I am. He doesn’t answer. ‘Is something wrong? Did you manage to reach the car?’

Eirik nods. He places the pickax on the floor in the vestibule and takes a few steps toward me, leaving lumps of tightly packed snow from his shoes in his wake. He’s still holding the rope and I recognize it vaguely as one he keeps in the boot, coiled inside the spare tire, in case of an emergency. In case of an emergency.

I swallow hard. ‘What’s happened?’ I ask, careful to keep my voice soft and calm. It’s like the Eirik I know and love isn’t really here, that this man standing in front of me is a stranger, living a separate narrative playing out inside his head. I have to connect with him, to bring him back around to this moment with me. ‘Eirik. Did you get reception on the phone?’

He gives a faint nod, a brief flick of the head, but it’s as if the movement isn’t in response to my question but rather in response to whatever is happening in his mind. Eirik stops a couple of steps away from where I’m lying on the sofa, my splintered and aching leg propped up high. He is clutching the coil of rope so tightly his knuckles have turned white. He stares at me and I’m shocked to see tears pooling in his eyes; in all these years, I’ve never seen Eirik cry.

‘You haven’t called anyone, have you?’ I whisper.

‘No.’

‘Can you please talk to me and tell me what is happening for you in this moment?’