A Nearly Normal Family

by M.T. Edvardsson

You could say that Ulrika and I rediscovered each other this summer. It sounds like such a cliché, almost too cheesy; no one believes it’s possible to fall in love with your wife all over again after twenty years. As if the years raising a child were merely an aside in our love story. As if this is what we’ve been waiting for. But that’s how it feels, anyway.

It takes a long time to build a life, but only an instant for it to crumble. It takes many years—decades, maybe a lifetime—to become the person you truly are. The path is almost always circuitous, and I think there’s a reason for that, for life to be built around trial and error. We are shaped and created by our trials.

I like to say I’m a believer, not a knower. If you start to believe you know, be wary. I think of life as a state of constant learning.

looked up at the ceiling and said a silent prayer. At the same time, I knew God didn’t have a thing to do with this.

Throughout the years I have frequently encountered the false assumption that a belief in determinism is simply a natural by-product of my belief in God, as if I must consider my free will to be limited by God. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. I believe man to be the living image of God. I believe in man.

“I was actually a die-hard atheist until I started high school. I was a member of Revolutionary Communist Youth for a while; I went around quoting Marx and wanted to rid the world of religion. But you grow out of all that dogmatic stuff. In time I grew more and more curious about different outlooks on life.”

Experience tells me that when you dislike someone on such vague grounds, the problem often rests with you.

I thought, This is what families do. They protect each other.

I am adamant in my belief that nothing could be as difficult as being a parent. All other relationships have an emergency exit. You can leave a lover, and most people do at some point, if love ebbs away, if you grow apart, or if it no longer feels good in your heart. You can leave friends and acquaintances along the way, and relatives too, and even siblings and parents. You can leave and move on and still make it out okay. But you can never renounce your child.

I grew up in a family steeped in the 1970s values of freedom and solidarity. Rules and demands hardly existed. Good sense and inherent morals were enough.

Love is a human’s most difficult task. I wonder if Jesus understood what He was asking of humanity when He urged us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Can you keep loving a murderer?

have sat across from abominable killers and promised them the unconditional love of God. Human love is of a different type. I thought of Paul’s words about love that rejoices when truth wins out, love that is faithful no matter the cost.

held tight to Ulrika’s hand and thought, This isn’t the kind of parents we are. We aren’t substance abusers; we’re academics, high earners. We are in good health, both physically and mentally. We’re not a broken family from a marginalized area with social and economic problems.

Death is seldom so tangible as when you can see how alive a person once was.

In misfortune we rediscover each other and become aware of what it means to be a human among other humans. In sorrow, we need each other more than ever.

I’ve always held privacy to be holy, even within my own family. The right to one’s own space in life is, to me, as important as the opportunity to open up and speak about everything.

think it’s been a frequent help to Ulrika and me that we’ve always had the chance to retreat and have some alone time. A requirement to constantly share everything can so easily become stifling. It’s often said that people are herd animals, but we mustn’t forget that we have the need for solitude as well.

How many times can you allow yourself to lie? Sooner or later you’ll cross the line of decency and dignity, no matter how noble the purpose of the lie may seem.

He looked like a person who jumps feet first into everything—vacation had to be vacation. Late nights, Efes and Raki, card games on the balcony. It would probably take at least a week to recover.

An hour later I was lying on my back in a hidden hollow with Luka kissing my neck full of hickeys before he put his fingers inside me and tried to charm me with lines from porn movies.

He’s always walking around with that grin on his face, as far as I can tell. It’s not friendly at all. It looks smug, as if he’s smiling at his own imagined splendidness.

The inconceivable horror of another person taking control of my body. Another person forcing their way into the innermost parts of me and robbing me of the dignity and right to self-determination I had taken for granted.

They believe that humans are biological beings first and foremost. They don’t think you can cure illnesses by talking about feelings and other abstract stuff like that.”

“Age is overrated. For most people, it’s the same as empty calories. The years add up, but development stands still.”

“I think a lot of people have kids for their own sake. Kind of like how when everything seems gray and boring you pop downtown to buy a new lipstick just to feel a little better for a minute.”

“But my dad does things for his own sake. Or so that other people won’t find out that he and his family aren’t as

“My dad didn’t want to raise me. He wanted to create me, as if he was God himself. He wanted me to be exactly like him. No, wait, he wanted me to be the way he imagined a daughter of his would be. And when it didn’t turn out that way . . .”

knew something had happened. I had no idea what was about to happen.

don’t understand. Usually, when people talk about the fact that humans are social animals, part of a mainland and never an island, I have trouble relating. For my entire life I have felt cut off from the rest of humanity. This has never been a great cause of sorrow for me, possibly because it’s impossible to miss what you never had,

Others probably feel that a parent bears partial responsibility for the actions of their child. Especially in my case. Partly because I’m a woman and a mother; a man could never be burdened to the same extent. Partly because I’m a hard-boiled defense attorney, while my husband is a charming pastor who preaches God’s love and the Golden Rule.

Should I also be sitting in the defendant’s seat? Side by side with Stella, accused of having an inadequate aptitude for parenting and being an accessory to murder. I am convinced that some people think I should be.

hardly think I’m alone in saying that I craved stimulation from both career and family. Even though I happen to have been born without a penis.

As a lawyer, I was guilty of the most horrific violation of the law one could imagine. As a mother, my choice was the only correct one. I still had no idea what had happened on Friday night, but I knew with certainty that it was my duty to protect my daughter.

“This is all my fault.” I wondered if this was really true. If it’s ever true. Is there any sort of situation where you can say with certainty that a single person is responsible for what happens? Everything in life is dependent on so many different factors that interact in so many different ways.

Whose fault is it that our family turned out the way it did?

To be born human is to carry blame.

This was so typical of Stella. She knew that my relationship with Michael had extended beyond the professional; she had heard us speaking on the phone, and that was why she had now requested him as her defense. Because surely it wasn’t the case that she knew?