Page 14 of The Second Chance Bus Stop
She just hopes they’ll all hang in there.
Edith’s house is the type of home that doesn’t change. The key lock is the same, the sofa has gained a throw in a mocha shade to hide old stains but is still standing, and the kettle takes about ten minutes to boil water because, well, it’s ancient.
‘He cleans too much,’ Zara tells the walls after letting herself in.
‘What did you say?’ How he can hear her through two walls is a mystery.
‘I said a clean house is a sign of time wrongly spent.’
He pulls her into a hug. Uneven, anxious, too hard, then too loose. It goes on for too long.
‘Are yousureabout this?’
‘Blade, you’ve given up a lot. And I get it, your mum is a great mum, she’s special. I’ll be the first to say it. But not everyone would do what you did. Give up work and a life? You’ve always been too involved. This is the last thing youshoulddo, and I’m happy to help you, but then there has to be balance.’
She’s not here so he can find Sven, not really. She’s here so that he can get some distance, realise what he’s missing out on. That he’s not the only source of happiness for his mum, that he never was, nor could he be. He won’t find Sven—how could he? But he might find his way again. At least that’s what Zara hopes. If one can even find one’s way in only three weeks.
‘Will you keep looking for pictures or letters? She could have hidden them,’ Blade asks her.
The house is neat but filled with thirty years’ worth of things. It will be hard to find anything, but Zara doesn’t say so.
‘Sure.’
Zara walks into the kitchen and runs her hand, her fingers full of gold rings, over the spotless counter.
‘I think you might have OCD.’
‘I have not.’
Zara nods her chin in the direction of the counter, filled with orange-coloured plastic bottles. ‘You know, I’m capable of reading.’ In addition to the prescription labels themselves, Blade has carefully mapped out sticky notes repeating the instructions and uses of each medication. The bottles and pills are laid out in a colour scheme resembling a rainbow. Blade is behind her.
‘Stop acting like a parent dropping off a toddler at nursery. Stop hovering. A quick goodbye and off you go. We’ll be fine.’ She says this with actual confidence because, whether Blade knows it or not, she and Edith will be fine.
Zara hopes he will be too.
Blade
Copenhagen
When I land a week later I do so with a phone full of pictures of old letters, a backpack and a feeling of doom hanging over me, since I have only found five Svens with the correct surname in total (turns out there are 101,270 men with the first name Sven who live in Sweden) and one of them happens to have passed away recently and is to be buried this very day, in a village called Skurup. I decide that’s my first location. Exploring Svedala can wait.
I have no real plan other than turning up, hoping it’s a big funeral so I’ll go unnoticed and finding out who this Sven was. My online searches told me that he worked as a secondary school teacher, so if anyone questions who I am I will be there in the capacity of former student. I reread my mum’s rather short letter now.
Svennie,
I have many questions about where you ended up, but just know I wouldn’t change things. I couldn’t. Some things in life you don’t get to choose, and like my eye colour and aversion for spinach I didn’t choose you. I was programmed to love you.
I stop and think:What nonsense. Traffic lights and the space landings are programmed. Not the heart.
The airport has helpful information desks, fresh cool air despite it being June and hot dog kiosks everywhere. I find the car hire desk easily thanks to Scandinavian organisation and love of signs. I pull up my reservation number and pass the man my driver’s licence and credit card as he smiles at me.
‘Work or pleasure?’
Neither, in my case. Where is the ‘Other’ box?
‘That’s not the car I booked.’ I stare at the computer screen and what appears to me to be a camper-van. RV. Mobile home. What are they even called? I can’t think of a single time when I’ve ever needed to know before. The man, name-tagged Mohamed, looks as if he’s ready to hand me the Worst Customer of the Year badge.
‘It’s an upgrade from a Fiat 500. Congratulations.’
