He and Linda had animated conversations in the evening, sitting in the living room, her long blonde hair falling over the math problems he was helping her with. They didn’t have to talk about Hanne. To Linda, Hanne simply didn’t exist. One or twice in the beginning she had declined Hanne’s invitations to go out with her, and Helene admired her daughter’s natural distancing from this intrusive being. Linda would never have trouble with housekeepers.

While Helene got washed, she thought how it was a little strange that there had never been a young man in Linda’s life, not even a boy; only a few girlfriends over for evening tea – high school girls whom Henrik gallantly drove home afterward. She was a homebody through and through, content with her books and her knitting, with a pat on the cheek in passing, with her cute girlish bedroom, which she kept spotless without Hanne’s help. Morten’s friends had to stay in his room, and they never got driven home. It was the way things were. Helene had always been protective of her son, and the jealousy that bubbled up between the two siblings was no more than normal.

She stared into the mirror at her greenish face. It was because of the harsh fluorescent lights which she never had the energy to change. Suddenly she thought, We should have had a child together. Exhausted, she leaned her head against the mirror, and heard Hanne singing out in the kitchen ‘Tell me, why did you leave me? Please come ba-ack, Please come ba-ack…’ From the dining room, Henrik hummed along, and Helene felt betrayed and estranged. Something was going on in the house between everyone else around her, apart from her, and right under her nose. Something which was coming closer every day. She walked to her bedroom and quickly got dressed. A button-down top and skirt. Her heart was pounding, but she took out her most uncomfortable, least clunky shoes. They were black and pointed, with a thin strap across the ankle, and curved, medium-high heels. Suddenly she had a vision of her mother. They were in a shoe store, and Helene was getting new shoes. It was shortly before she took her first job, and she was about fourteen. Her mother had said: ‘This will be the last pair of shoes we buy for you.’ In that moment she had seen herself through her parents’ eyes as a consumer, an expense they would be free of. From that day forward she had had a troubled relationship with her mother, and she was proud of having established warmer, more lasting connections with her own children. But had she? Could you ever really know your children?

She sat across from Henrik, observing his delicate, slightly worn face and the smoke-colored circles around his eyes. It occurred to her that she didn’t know him at all.