It all feels like a long time ago now, almost two years. Tonight, Elisabeth feels calm and content. If someone were to place a bag of heroin on the table in front of her, Elisabeth wouldn’t touch it. She’d be able to hold the memory of its potency in her mind, and still not be tempted. She has too much, now, even though if she were to compare herself to some people she knows, she has nothing at all. But she has a blossoming career as a painter, Kristina – the best friend who’d do anything for her, people she trusts and a sense of purpose. In the group therapy sessions that happen every day of the week except Tuesdays and Sundays, Elisabeth and her fellow residents at Villa Vinternatt explore their pasts, their current experiences, and their wishes for the future – that vague future in which they must leave Villa Vinternatt and reintegrate into society. Someday, she hopes to be ready. In her individual therapy, Elisabeth has begun to address how her family has been affected by her addiction, and ways to hopefully heal those wounds someday. Once a month, her parents visit. Kristina visits, too. And once a month, Elisabeth is released overnight and usually spends the night at Kristina and Eirik’s, or her parents’ in Bærum.

She looks out at the narrow Drøbak Sound and the wooded headland of Nesodden across the bay. She shivers in the cool breeze coming in through the open window, carrying the scent of Villa Vinternatt’s rose garden. She watches the blonde hairs on her arm prickle and stand up, and in the twilight, the fading scars underneath are invisible.