‘No. I… I see her everywhere, it’s like she’s haunting me, she’s even in my own goddamn reflection in the mirror, and it’s all my fault—’

‘Don’t you ever say that. It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.’ Eirik takes both of my hands in his and kisses the top of each tightly clenched fist. He pulls me close to him and raises my chin with his fingertips so I’m forced to look him in the eyes.

‘This is not the time for allowing irrational behavior or bad thoughts. I can’t afford you falling to pieces now, Kristina. This is the time for focus and graft and control. Okay?’

I nod, but I know more about bad thoughts and the shadowy recesses of the mind than my husband ever will. I nod again, more firmly, and take a deep breath through my nostrils. This is a time for control. I am not what happened to me, but what I choose to become.

10

Leah, two weeks before

It’s the doorbell that wakes her. It’s been one of those rare nights when she just fell asleep, without tears, without rumination, without fear. Her hand instinctively goes to the rounded bump on her lower stomach, as if to reassure herself this pregnancy wasn’t just a dream.

She sits up in bed, drawing the cool air of the bedroom deeply into her lungs. It is completely dark and she can’t even make out the outline of the door leading to the living room. Outside, the wind rattles down the street, carrying little bits of trash and tearing the last leaves from the trees. She checks her phone, but there are no new messages. She messaged him earlier in the evening, begging. Please come, she said. Please, please, please. I need you. He didn’t respond, as usual. But he’s here now, downstairs, on the street, ringing her doorbell.

The doorbell rings again, filling the hushed apartment with its shrill sound, and Leah moves swiftly from the bed, through the living room, to the door.

11

Kristina, three days later