A Nearly Normal Family

by M.T. Edvardsson

Kids are a full-time job. When they’re babies you’re waiting for them to become independent, and you spend all your time worrying that they’ll choke on something or fall on their face. Then comes preschool and you worry because they’re out of your sight, because they might fall off a swing set or fail their next checkup. Then they start school and you worry that they won’t fit in, won’t make any friends, and everything is homework and riding lessons, handball and pajama parties. They start high school and there are even more friends, parties and conflicts,

talks with tutors, all the chauffeuring around. You worry about drugs and drinking, that they’ll end up in bad company, and the teenage years go by like a soap opera at 190 kilometers per hour. Then suddenly you’re standing there with an adult child and you think you’ll finally get to stop worrying.

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.

I consider myself to be a good person.

I’m a person with an abundance of failings, a person who has made innumerable mistakes and errors. I am acutely aware of this, and the first to admit it.

What I mean is that I always act with good intentions, out of love and care. I have always wanted to do the right thing.

“The landline?” Ulrika said, standing up. No one ever calls the landline.

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

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.

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

The right to one’s own space in life is, to me, as important as the opportunity to open up and speak about everything.

“She has confessed.”

I said in school one time that I didn’t understand why there were homeless people in Sweden, and that I would much rather be in prison than live on the street. After six weeks in jail I will never again say I want to be locked up, or that I think it’s like a hotel.

It’s awfully ironic that the sides of me that bother Dad most are the things I inherited from him.

All I deserve is darkness.

psychopaths are sometimes described as predators who manipulate those around them with their exceptional charm and charisma. Those who encounter the seductive flattery of a psychopath seldom realize they’re being manipulated until it’s too late. Psychopaths lie often and without guilt. Psychopaths lie for their own gain, to improve their self-image, and to get ahead in life.

Psychopaths know they’re lying. And so did I. And sure, sometimes I lied for my own benefit. I wasn’t sure that I always felt guilty when I lied. What did that say about me?

dry slice of bread and wonder what I will say to Agnes Thelin. Elsa and Jimmy take the elevator with me, down to the interrogation room, where Michael Blomberg is waiting. “Good morning, Stella,” he says. He seems nervous. Is he afraid of what I’m going to say? He huffs and puffs as he wrestles his way out of his tight jacket. His shirt is navy blue. Agnes Thelin rattles off a few pleasantries before settling down across from me and starting the recording. “You’ve had some time to think since we last spoke, Stella. Is there something you want to tell me, or clarify?”

“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 perfect as he wants them to be.”

“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…”

I’m afraid that choice may cost me everything.

“Stop interfering in my life! Living with you is like being in prison!”

Maybe sometimes all it takes to believe you’re in love is being appreciated and valued. Being seen for who you are, admired for your existence rather than your actions.