Page 79 of The Happiness Blueprint
“We still have a location,” I say hopeful.
“Fine, so you figure out what direction we need to go without roads. Shall we just trudge through the forest, then? At least we’ll be shielded from the rain if we stay here and wait it out.”
“I thought there was no bad weather, only—” I’m interrupted by a loud explosion of thunder and instinctively move closer to my sister. I wish I could google the risk of lightning striking in a pine forest, but Google has its Out of Office on. Saga is visibly anxious. Ghosts, spiders, loud noises—come to think of it, there is lots that scares her.
“Let’s move away from the trees and try to find a clearing,” I say, pretty sure I can recall high school or a random science book telling me to do so.
“And get soaked? I’d say we shelter under the biggest tree we can find! I’m literally shaking from cold, K.”
“Freezing, or hit by lightning? Choose your death, dear sister! I know my preference.”
She mutters, sulks, looks around herself as if she would be able to see lightning coming after her, but she does follow me as I walk on in the hope of spotting an open area.
“A clear space,” I hear her say. “When did you get so practical?”
“I’m not hopeless, you know.” A thought hits me as I say the words, and I stop. “Wait, if you think I’m hopeless, why did you send me to Sweden? Do you realize how I could have messed things up?” I’m shouting. Not sure if it’s because of the rain or because I really want to shout at my sister in this moment. How can the sky be so dark suddenly? I’d forgotten how scary Swedish rainstorms get.
“Mum and I had a conversation. It was enough with the customer chats and toxic men. You needed a challenge other than your own medical condition. You have so muchpotential, Klara. We just wanted you to realize it.”
“So you pushed me into trouble knowingly? I can’t bloody believe it.”
“Listen, I really couldn’t have gone. That part is true. But yes, and no, we didn’t push you into trouble but achallenging environment.”
“You knew how hard this would be for me!” I’m angry, but the presence of Pontus forces me to calm down. I’m never angry at animals or children: they often fail to understand things and respond appropriately. I know how they feel.
Saga looks guilty, so I know my reaction is appropriate.
“I’m going this way.” I pull gently at my horse’s reins. I know it’s the right way, even though I don’t have directions showing me exactly where to go, and every row of pine trees is identical to the last. “You can trust me, your hopeless sister, or go and get lost, literally.” I walk off, rain falling off my shoulder and onto the ground with the force of an overflowing gutter. My eyelashes struggle to keep up with the drops of water, and my hands have turned pink and stiff from the wet cold. My socks are soaking, and the ground makes noises as I step on it.
Only once I get to the first bend of the road do I turn around. Saga and her horse are following after me, with a twenty-yard distance, walking slowly, two heads bent down. I stop and wait for her. For the first five minutes we seethe beside one another, horses in tow. Then she says, “Why do you think I always tried so hard? You had their love whatever you did. It was alwaysKlara is so strong and amazing. The only way I could get praise was to achieve top marks, and even then, it didn’t feel like much. I used to wish I would get ill too! So that I could have a week in hospital with Mum to myself and Dad arriving with presents and treats.” For a moment I am stunned.
“You never told me any of this.” I had thought she was angry with me. When people are angry at me, I understand the anger to be evoked by me—my person, my words or my body—I never consider that the anger could be coming fromthem.I think now that perhaps I haven’t made as many people angry in my life as I thought I had. Perhaps the only person I’ve failed is myself.
“Telling you I was pushing myself beyond my limits to compete with you would have ruined the purpose.”
“I’m sorry, Saga.”
“All this talk about perfect Saga, the fairy tale...well, I’m not. I have a confession for you. That summer road trip when you were a baby and cried the whole trip? I pinched you the whole time. Literally every time you stopped crying, I reached for your thigh, silent and sneaky when Mum and Dad had their eyes on the road and the map.”
“Oh my God. You brute.”
“Yep.”
“I guess you were four years old. You’re forgiven.”
“What about thirty-year-old me, am I forgiven now? For leaving you alone, for not doing enough?” I think of myself and what I do to qualify as a good sister and can’t come up with much. I’ve found excuses not to come and visit Saga. I hated the flight there, and she was always busy, leaving me to wander the streets of Stuttgart alone and go to museums, the contents of which I never really cared about. I would be looking at the carpet of a stately home or a scarcely clad marble statue wondering what she was doing in her office that very moment and wishing I had her next to me so I could tell her that the statue looked like our secondary teacher with the large nose. My solution was to stop visiting altogether.
“I’ve also been a pretty shitty sister, haven’t I?” I admit.
I can’t remember a single time when I haven’t succeeded in being short and difficult to my sister. Or just absent. In many ways, we’re strangers, my sister and me. That’s not what I want; I want to spend more time together. I want to know my sister Saga. If someone asks what my sister is like I want to have the answers. The words fall out of me.
“You told me I’m your person, but I feel inadequate. For what you need, I mean. I always need you there for me, but what do I offer in return? I never actually check how you are. I didn’t even know how you struggled with motherhood.”
Saga starts to open her mouth to, I assume, debate this statement and make me feel better again but then changes her mind and simply says, “Hmm.”
“You are so amazing, Saga. You can set anyone at ease. You can talk to anyone, just instantly get on with them. I, on the other hand...” I swallow hard “...I can’t even go to the hairdresser. I find the silence once we have discussed the usual—where we’re going on holiday, where we work and what our weekend plans are—unbearable. I attempt to deliverMm-hmms andOh yeses until the hair dryer comes out and finally drowns out all the chatting, but I just can’t do it.” This gets a laugh from her.
“Thought your hair looked a bit long,” she says and adds, “I have signal back! And I think I recognize that log cabin we just passed. I’d say we are officially not lost anymore.”
