Half Life by Krista Foss

Author:Krista Foss [Foss, Krista]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2021-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

Elin stops talking; the phone records her breathing.

Her morfar fought with words; there were never enough of them. Or they weren’t precise. His mother, his brother, then wife Margrethe and her personal assistant transcribed and edited his articles before they were sent to be published, wrangled his wild-windedness into something readable. Otherwise, he’d never have stopped teasing out the contradictions; something always gets left out.

Mette came back the next weekend. To help with Bets. That’s what she said. And not much more, other than short, formal questions: Where does this go? Should I buy more wipes? Elin’s chest cramped; her mother had taught her that proximity could hold more judgment than love. Yet she didn’t want Mette to leave, either.

Her sister made Elin’s bed and folded the baby clothes in all the wrong ways. She put Bets on the floor by the blocks, and Elin lay down beside her child on the carpet. Mette found a spray bottle: she spritzed the living room’s windowsills as if they were plants.

She moved around until she was at right angles to Elin, still spraying when she spoke.

The probability is low, almost nil, with these cases that it only happens to one child, she said. You know that?

Elin’s back was to her.

Yes, she said.

The word hung in the air. Something dark and heavy that didn’t know where to land: statistical certainty.

At the end of that week, Mette phoned and suggested they meet in a café. Her voice was friendly but formal, the way she would speak to a songwriter with more ambition than talent—generosity with its trace metal of pity.

Sure, Elin said.

The rendezvous was a block away from her house, an easy walk, a chance to get out with the baby. Bets had been restless and inconsolable without the calming routine of time with her aunt.

Elin brushed her hair, applied mascara, tucked in her shirt, put on pants that had a zipper: made an effort. So she could refuse when Mette offered to pay for her coffee, she ransacked the bedroom bureau and her jacket pockets for change.

Mette was waiting for them when Elin pushed their maelstrom of wind, stroller, loosed hair, falling soother, and whimpering infant into the café.

Her sister’s mouth worked into one of her enigmatic half smiles, arms outstretched for Bets. Handing the baby over meant they didn’t need to hug each other.

A few seconds later, Bets’s little hand was tangled in Mette’s hair, their eyes locked. Backlit by morning shining through the café windows, her sister was beyond lovely, her child vibrant.

Mette made a gesture as if to return Bets to Elin, but the child mewed with alarm, clung to Mette’s hair, grabbed a little fistful of her sweater.

Leave her, Elin said.

Mette took one of her breaths that seemed to compress whole scenes of dialogue with one exhale.

I’m seeing a therapist, she said.

The cookie Elin had bought for Bets was an embarrassment, nutritionally negligent. She brushed away the granular sugar, peeled off its stripes of caramel icing, fretting that it was still too sweet.

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