The End, page 16
“Like I said, Klas isn’t doing so well right now,” Erika says. “Did you know he’s staying at our house now?”
“Yes.”
“He and my husband have become very religious recently.”
“And what about you?”
We reach the park, which smells like wet grass, bark, and asphalt. A hare races past, terrified by Boomer’s sudden appearance.
“I can’t,” Erika says. “I’ve tried; I mostly go with them to the True Church to be with my husband and . . . because I don’t know what else to do.”
That statement would have had Tilda rolling her eyes behind Erika’s back.
“I hope they’ll be over it soon,” Erika continues. “Honestly, I’ve never been very interested in asking the big questions. We’re never getting any answers anyway, so what’s the point? We’ll find out in a few weeks. Until then, I’m busy making sure this life is going as well as it can.”
Now she’s speaking so quickly, she nearly stumbles over her words. She must have been dying to tell someone the truth. And I understand what she means.
“Do they know you don’t believe?” I ask.
Erika glances at me. Shakes her head.
We stop when Boomer finds a spot on the grass that requires his full attention. Erika’s face glows red as a streetlight’s beam filters through the umbrella.
“They say you were the last person to see Tilda alive,” she says.
“Not the last person.”
Erika looks at me, curious.
“Who was?”
“Whoever killed her.”
Erika flinches, and I immediately regret my words.
“But I did see Tilda that night,” I say. “In the square.”
We start walking again. I tug the leash and Boomer reluctantly follows us.
“What were you talking about?” Erika asks.
“She was going to meet someone.”
“And you don’t know who?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” I say. “I haven’t been able to think about anything else.”
“No. . . . No, of course not.”
There’s a whiff of something rotten in the air. We’re getting closer to the fountain in the middle of the park. It’s dry. Garbage and plastic bags are piled around the trash cans; birds are picking at scraps of food. Boomer pulls at his leash to go sniff around. I keep him away.
“I wonder who it was,” Erika says. “Like I said, she could have met anyone on the way. That night was terrifying. We were in the True Church, but we could hear the sirens loud and clear. I’d forgotten they were showing the game in town that night.”
“How could you forget? It was all over the news.”
Erika’s smile is stiff. “We don’t watch the news anymore.”
We’ve almost crossed the entire park. I look back at my street, search the windows of our apartment.
“I’ve wondered if her coach didn’t have something to do with it,” Erika says. “She was so angry with him the last time I was with her.”
“Tommy? Why?”
Erika shakes her head.
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t say.”
Another thing I’ll never know about Tilda.
“Or it could be the drugs,” Erika goes on. “It took a long time for Klas to believe the rumors, but I could tell she was high sometimes.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I gaze at our windows again, and spot Judette. She waves at me to come in. Even from this distance, I can tell that she’s angry.
“What happened to Tilda is so incredibly tragic,” Erika says.
“I have to go.”
“Of course,” Erika says, following my gaze. “I should get going, too, before anyone wonders where I’ve disappeared to.”
We say goodbye at her car. Even though both moms are waiting in the window now, I stay on the street and watch the red lights of the car until they round the corner.
I feel bad for Erika. She’s sacrificing so much of her final days to keep her family functioning.
But who am I to question that? I was ready to put up with just about anything to stay with Tilda.
NAME: LUCINDA
TELLUS #0392811002
POST 0024
We often say that someone has gone “crazy,” when all we really mean is that they’re angry or confused. We can even refer to someone who’s kind of spontaneous or oh-so-wonderfully upbeat as “wild and crazy,” and mean it in a positive way (if you like that kind of thing).
But actually seeing someone go crazy is something else entirely. It’s a reminder that there’s something inside all of us that can break at any time.
So Klas tapped his spoon against his cup and thanked everyone for coming. Then he informed us that we were going to pray for Tilda’s soul, even though she hadn’t turned to God in time. We were supposed to praise God for the coming rapture.
“God is casting a net over our souls,” he said. “Only the chosen ones will be caught in it and get pulled into heaven.”
Those who were rotting and ruined would be left behind in the devastation. And unlike Tilda, we could still be saved.
You can tell by the eyes when someone’s cracked under pressure. It’s in the smile, the way it widens until it hardly looks human anymore.
Caroline got to her feet so quickly the chair fell over. She begged him to stop, saying that this wasn’t the right time to convert anyone. He replied with quotes from the Bible. I found some of them online:
The stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
When Caroline tried to put an arm around him to get him to sit down, he pushed her. I glimpsed the panic behind the frenzied smile. He shouted that Caroline had just confirmed that the truth was in the scripture.
There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts. And saying, “Where is the promise of his coming?”
He said it was Caroline’s fault that Tilda hadn’t come to God in her last days.
When Tilda’s grandpa and a few others tried to drag him out, Klas broke free and fell across one of the tables. Coffee cups and plates shattered on the stone floor. Caroline screamed that he was ruining everything.
I got the feeling something had been started that couldn’t be stopped. It vibrated around the room. Klas had reminded us that we were all going to die soon. Everyone was so afraid. And fear easily turns into hatred.
Klas’s brother, Anders, finally got him out of the room. Unsurprisingly, Erika followed them. Those of us who were left behind heard Klas’s shouts until the front doors shut.
Caroline was comforted by her parents and the priest. And I ran out to look for Miranda. She was sitting with Molly on a bench behind the fellowship hall. I felt so proud of my sister when I spotted her; she was comforting Molly in the same way Tilda would comfort me sometimes when we were younger, stroking Molly’s back in that easy way I’d never been good at.
They had heard the screams and the porcelain breaking.
“Do I have to leave now?” Molly asked.
“I think so,” I said, though my heart nearly broke when I thought about what her life had become.
Molly looked at me, her shoulders pulled up to her ears, and said she hated the True Church and hated Klas. “They spend every night at the service, and they sit and read the Bible for hours every morning. Mom is the only normal one, and she pretends to be like them so there won’t be any fights.” I asked Molly if she also has to pretend. And she looked at me defiantly, in a way that gave me some hope. She said that though she’d been baptized in the True Church, “They know I don’t believe in God, so I don’t have to go anymore. They said God can tell that I’m false, so they pray for me instead.”
A moment later, Anders came running, his face bright red. “Come here, Molly,” he said. “We have to go now. Klas isn’t feeling well.” Molly’s shoulders went up a little more before she rose from her seat.
Afterward, Miranda said she’d asked Molly if she wanted to come and visit us sometime, but that Molly isn’t allowed to fraternize with non-believers. They’d exchanged numbers, though, so they can talk in secret.
Molly needs a friend like my sister.
Dad came and got us. Miranda had so many questions, and Dad got more and more upset the longer we talked. He’s a classic scientist, despising anything to do with religion. All of a sudden, I found myself defending it, explaining to Miranda that all Christians aren’t like the Truthers.
We took the road past the cemetery where Mom’s ashes are interred, where Tilda’s going to be soon. In less than three weeks, Dad, Miranda, and I will be ashes, too. “Good thing the comet is coming so I don’t have to plan your funeral,” Dad said when Miranda wasn’t listening. He said it as one of our too-real jokes, and I laughed. But I think there was more to what he said than we pretended. He must have been fearing what Caroline has just gone through: having to bury your child.
2 WEEKS, 4 DAYS LEFT
SIMON
Ididn’t know we had a test today, I say, and stare down at a paper covered in numbers and letters I’ve never seen before. I look around the classroom. The sun shines through the windows; the branches of the birch trees stir slowly in the air. Their leaves are fresh. It’s spring. Johannes looks up and shoots me a pitying look before turning back to his test. Pens rasp against paper. Hampus is already done. He grins at me before leaning over his desk and pulling his cap down over his eyes to take a nap. Next to him, Ali is entering something into his calculator. I jump when someone slams a hand onto my desk. I turn in my chair. Our math teacher, Mr. Andersson, looks at me inquiringly. Did you need some help? he says. I haven’t studied, I admit. I didn’t think we still had school. Someone giggles. Mr. Andersson bends down toward me. You realize I have to fail you if you can’t pass the test? And I realize it’s all been a dream. There is no comet. The world has kept going without me; I’ve thrown away my entire future. The feeling of failure is a cold, heavy stone in my chest when I look down at the test. Now the pages are empty. But if the comet isn’t real . . . and everything is as it’s always been . . . that must mean Tilda is alive. I jump to my feet. Run out of the classroom and into her bedroom. She’s standing by the window. The sun makes her dark hair shimmer like copper. Hi, I say. Tilda doesn’t respond, just turns to look at me. A fly is crawling over one eye. She tries to blink it away, but it stays there. We shouldn’t be here, she says. Something terrible is going to happen tonight. We’re behind the glass factory now. More flies crawl out from between her lips. I’m too late.
When I wake up, my heart is pounding so hard it feels like it’s trying to burst through my chest.
Judette’s standing in the doorway with her laptop in her hands. Did she knock? I search for my phone on the floor, then remember that I gave it to Emma yesterday.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“Almost one thirty.”
I’ve slept half the day away. Slept my way closer to the end.
“Simon,” Judette says, and now I can tell that there’s something strange in her expression. “Maria just called me. There’s a video about you on YouTube.”
My skin suddenly feels too tight.
“What video?” I say.
Judette steps into the room and sits on the edge of my bed. Hesitates.
“It’s a girl saying she slept with you. The night Tilda died.”
The bleach-blonde girl. The girl whose name I never found out. I stare at the laptop.
“Show me,” I say.
Judette opens the laptop. The window is already open on YouTube. Large eyes gaze straight into the camera. Her face is stripped of makeup, evenly illuminated, as if she’s in front of a window. The video’s called, “I had sex with a killer.” It has 238 views so far.
I shake my head. Judette closes the laptop again.
“What does she say?” I ask.
“She doesn’t claim that it wasn’t consensual,” Judette says quickly. “Nothing like that. There’s just a lot of talk about how she could have been the one to die, that you seemed distracted . . . that you must have been planning the murder already.”
I laugh.
“We’ve reported it,” Judette continues. “But, well, you know . . .”
She doesn’t have to finish the sentence. Neither of us believes that the video will be taken down, that anyone is even reading the reports anymore.
“If you decide to watch it later, don’t read the comments,” Judette insists.
I nod. Then rage crashes through me like a wave. I hate Tilda, passionately and irrationally, for landing me in this mess.
“I’m so sorry this shit keeps happening to you,” Judette says.
“So am I,” I say, and get out of bed.
Emma’s left my phone on the kitchen table. Judette turns the TV on, and I listen while I make myself a cup of tea. Numerous European countries have opened suicide clinics—dead bodies, sometimes entire families, have become a public health issue in crowded areas.
I pour water into my cup. Make myself a sandwich.
Stina was called away last night. Someone had found their wife in the bathtub. Was it pills? A razor blade?
Could I do that?
I try to imagine it, and my heart beats faster. Could I do it?
No. But what if I someday I come up with another answer?
What if I can’t take it anymore?
Suddenly, two and a half weeks feel too long to endure. I sit down at the table. Icy needles prick my forehead and temples. I look at my phone. Grab it. Turn it on.
It connects to the internet and the messages start pouring in. Twelve, total. Almost all of them from numbers I don’t recognize.
I get up from the table. I want to leave, but there’s nowhere to go. The phone vibrates against the table. Lucinda’s name flashes on the screen. As I lift it, the vibrations shake my entire body. I answer it just to get them to stop.
“What do you want?” I demand.
“Sorry. I really mean it. I’m so sorry about what happened before.” Her voice is breathless. Maybe nervous. “Can you meet me?”
“Why should I?”
Emma looks at me when she enters the kitchen.
“I understand why you wouldn’t want to,” Lucinda says. “But we need to talk.”
I look out the window. Thick white clouds rush across a white sky like a sped-up video.
“It’s about Tilda,” Lucinda says. “She’s written me a letter.”
NAME: LUCINDA
TELLUS #0392811002
POST 0025
Caroline’s phone call woke me up this morning. She said that she had something she needed to show me and asked me to come over.
I couldn’t smell any ghostly chlorine in the house this time. I heard no sounds coming from upstairs. But Tilda felt more present than ever.
The police had returned her laptop that morning, and on it, Caroline had found a letter to me. She left me alone in the living room with the computer so that I could take my time to read it privately. She trusted me, and I had already decided to betray that trust. But first, I opened the document. It was written the day before Tilda died. While reading it, I kept having to remind myself that it wasn’t meant as a farewell. Tilda couldn’t have possibly known that she would be dead by the time I read it.
I emailed the letter to myself. I’ve pasted it below. What I write here in TellUs is so often about Tilda; it’s only fair that she gets to tell her version of the events, in her own words.
I just wish you could hear her voice while reading this. I can, as clearly as if she’s sitting right next to me. It’s rambling and incoherent, faster than usual, but it’s still her.
Lucinda. I don’t even know where to start. There is so much I want to tell you that my mind just goes completely blank. I miss you so fucking much, but I’m too much of a coward to get in touch with you in any other way than this. I’m so afraid you’d be disappointed in me if you saw me now, but I want to try to reach out. I’ve thought about it for ages (have you been thinking of me, too? I hope so). Mom met your dad in town, and he said you’ve stopped your chemo treatment and that THE OLD LUCINDA IS BACK. She told me when we had dinner the other night and I decided to write you this letter. I don’t know if I’ll ever send it. I can’t really think clearly nowadays. I don’t want to waste the nights (or days) when we have so few left and they just get fewer and fewer. I want to experience as much as possible; there’s so much I want to try, and we always put things off, because we were such good little girls who always did what was expected of us and exercised and studied and did our best and got home in time. Our entire lives were based around planning for the future, and now there is no future. You have to BE ABLE TO LAUGH IN THE FACE OF MISERY, they say. I miss laughing at things with you. If we ever meet again, I’m going to tell you that I wasn’t a good girl like everyone thought, including you and Simon, even though you knew me better than anyone. I cheated and lied and there is a reason why I’m like this now. I know what people are saying about me behind my back and you might hear it, too, if you haven’t already, but I want to tell you about it in my way. Not to lay the blame on anyone else, but because I know you’d understand. YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO WOULD. We had a party at the pool the other night and it was my idea, like a “fuck you” to Tommy because he’s ruined everything, and now I’ll never be free of him, I don’t have the energy to write about it, but I’ll explain it to you when we see each other again. I thought it would feel like revenge, having everyone drink and fuck and messing with the place, but Lucinda Lucinda Lucinda, I regret it because it was YOURS AND MINE before it was ever his, the only place where I’ve known who I am, and I ruined it.
