at a man dressed all in white who was standing completely still in a glass case. The disturbing part was that the man looked exactly like him.
He reached across the bed, grabbed his cell phone to check the time and saw that it was already five in the afternoon. He also saw a text from Lina, read it quickly and got out of bed.
He put on his pants and pulled a shirt over his head as he left the bedroom and walked into the kitchen. As usual, the refrigerator door refused to open until he jerked the handle with both hands. He surveyed its contents: butter packets, ketchup bottle, jar of pickles.
Just as he picked up the milk carton to check the expiration date, he heard Lina’s voice from the entranceway.
“Hello? Sweetie, are you home?”
“Yes, I’m here,” he answered. He heard the front door close as he took a mouthful of milk from the carton and put it back in the fridge. When she came into the kitchen, he was standing quietly by the kitchen table.
“Great that you’re already up,” she said. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled.
She caressed his arm, gave him a light kiss on the cheek and set a white plastic bag on the table.
“I got takeout.”
“Oh, nice.”
“Red curry.”
“Are we celebrating something?” he asked
“No, I just didn’t want to waste time cooking dinner. I thought we could use the time for something better.”
Philip felt her hand slip around his arm, and he looked at her. The text message she’d sent earlier had been just three words: Snuggle time tonight.
It meant that she wanted to have sex at least once if not more in the next few hours before he had to leave for work. Their wedding three years ago had marked the beginning of a long struggle with infertility. He was now in his thirties, and she was only twenty-five, and it felt as if they already had tried everything. Their specialist could not find any medical reason why they couldn’t get pregnant on their own; they were told they probably just needed to relax.
Lina eventually devised the current plan, a schedule to have sex as often as possible around when she was ovulating,
Today happened to be three days before, and so they should have sex. Not necessarily because they wanted to—just because that was how their life was now.
“We have to,” she said.
“I know, I know,” he said. But he didn’t want to think about routines and schedules. Not today, and especially not now. He hoped the stiffness of his smile wouldn’t give him away, but it did.
“Don’t you want to?”
“Of course I do.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!” he said, much more emphatically than he’d intended.
She jerked away and refused to look at him, instead staring into the bag at the aluminum containers with their steaming lids.
Philip didn’t know what to say. He hated the goddamn plan. Hated to have sex on schedule like a stupid robot.
One day several years ago he had been told by his own father that he was a coward, a loser, for choosing to be an ambulance nurse. He hadn’t spoken to his father since that day, but what if he had? What would his father say to him if he found out that his son wasn’t even capable of getting his wife, the love of his life, pregnant? Would he call him a double loser? Or something even worse?
Fortunately he would never know. He made a promise to himself never to speak with his father again. But even so, his father’s words had affected him. He actually felt like a loser all the time, but he tried not to show it or speak of it. Not even with Lina. He didn’t want to let her in that close. Didn’t want her to think of him as both inadequate and weak.
“Look...” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said, shrugging her shoulders in disappointment and pulling one of the containers out of the bag.
Suddenly he felt dizzy and closed his eyes when he realized he was seeing double. When he opened them again, she was looking at him questioningly.
“Maybe we should just eat,” she said curtly, taking out the other container.
Now it was his turn to stop her.
“Come on, now...” he said.
She shook her head so forcefully that her light brown hair fell into her face. He went over to her, lifted her chin and kissed her softly on the mouth. Then he let his hand travel over her cheek and around the back of her neck. He looked at her with a smile in his eyes and knew there was only one way to make her happy.
He pressed his lips against hers again, and this time, she responded in kind. His hands found the small of her back and her skin underneath her clothes, her soft breasts, her panties.
They might just as well make love right there on the table, or standing against the wall, or on the kitchen floor. He didn’t care, and he knew she didn’t, either. Nothing else mattered as long as they had sex.
Now he felt her eager hands pulling at his shirt. Her breath quickened as he pressed her against the wall, felt her body trembling in excitement. He kissed her again.
“Come with me,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Aren’t we going to eat?” she said, taking it.
“Yes, but let’s start with dessert.”
* * *
Jana Berzelius watched as her father held his fork clumsily, bringing it to his mouth with great concentration. But his hand seemed to have a mind of its own and the food ended up on his cheek and chin. She was sitting with him and his nurse in the kitchen in Lindö.
Her mother had told her that meals took time and that her father had finally begun to eat by himself, but Jana had never imagined that she would see him eating like a child, undignified, a bib around his neck and food around his mouth.
He dropped the food again, then lowered his fork to scoop up another bite when the nurse stopped him. She smiled, took the fork from him and picked up a small mound of mashed potatoes.
“Open your mouth,” she said softly.
But he refused, turning his head away and pressing his lips together like a defiant child. She bumped the mashed potatoes against his mouth.
“Come now, open your mouth now, Karl.”
Jana had no desire to sit there any longer and watch him struggle with his meal. She left the kitchen soundlessly.
She went up the stairs and through the hallway, opening the door to her father’s office. From the doorway, she surveyed the shelves, desk and paintings on the walls.
It had all happened in this room.
Jana had tried to stop him that day from shooting himself with the pistol. The bullet had traveled diagonally, injuring the left side of his brain, which meant that he couldn’t walk or move his body properly.
She stepped into the room now and walked around the desk. She saw the mess of papers and thought how nothing was like the old days. Her father’s strict order was gone, the sense of control that had been his signature all these years.
She paged slowly through bills for water, electricity, trash collection. Various dates, all out of order. Dozens of papers in no organization whatsoever.
She had just begun straightening them into a neat stack when she heard someone clear their throat behind her. She looked up and saw the caretaker standing in the doorway.
“Yes?” Jana said curtly, irritated at the woman’s curious gaze.
“You’re