Page 89 of The Second Chance Bus Stop
‘How did you convince them to sign so quickly? I didn’t even know that you wanted it to turn out this way,’ I ask Mattias as soon as he answers my call.
‘I didn’t want you to have to wait another minute. You’ve been in limbo for way too long. You needed that closure fast,’ my brother says. ‘I can’t just stay out of things all my life. I’ve been in a surprise-party planning group chat for four months, and so far I’ve contributed the word “Great.” I need to get involved with life and what happens to people. So—here the right thing is easy. Much easier than whether we buy helium balloons which are bad for the environment or go for confetti that has to be hoovered off the floor for hours.’
I pull the corners of my mouth into a smile.
‘The problem was never yours. It was that you didn’t have enough people standing up for you. I followed Mum and Dad,and for some reason they couldn’t see what harmed you. They couldn’t relate to you.’
That hurts. But he’s right. I was so different, not the girl they’d dreamt of after three boys. I didn’t like dresses and would wail when my mum tried to do my hair. Karin told them she had solutions. That I was treatable. If you don’t understand something perhaps you’d believe anyone who says they do? They couldn’t relate to me, so they couldn’t stop what was happening to me.
Mattias continues.
‘Honestly, it didn’t take much. You’ve stayed away, and they haven’t seen you in action. They’ve imagined you holed up in your uncle’s old flat selling some flowers now and again. When they saw you handling a big project and what you created in their town, it was an eye-opener. What would they ever be able to do with the business themselves? I think being shareholders is the perfect solution. They’ll all see firsthand how very capable you are. They’ll profit from somethingyouare doing. Trust me, their relationship with you will change.’
The shop is mine.Forever. I don’t have to sell, and I don’t have to scramble around and find hundreds of thousands of kroners. No more contracts in market towns that make me feel overwhelmed and anxious. Just me and the flowers in this small space I love so much. If this past month has taught me something, it is that yes, Icando it if I have to, but I don’twantto. I want my home, Cornflakes, Lina and the same pasta salad every lunchtime. On top of those joys, I get to email my brothers a quarterly profit statement and witness their reaction to the fact that Sophia, the one who no one believed in, is doing well.
Then I write to my parents. My parents who now follow Autistic accounts on Twitter and like their posts.I love you, Iwrite. Because I have a lot of love in my life, and I’m not stingy. I am happy enough to give love even when it’s not fully earned yet. And I think that maybe love is worth something, maybe even a lot. We don’t get each other but I’m no longer an annexe to the family home. I’ve moved out, broken free and found a plot of land to build myself on. I’m a cottage now. With wonky windows and a messy bedroom. Mum can come and visit as long as she’s happy to see a cottage. She may never go shopping with me or say, ‘My daughter is my best friend.’ But there is love, and in the end a person you love and who loves you is sometimes enough. I can cut strings and end my relationship, or I can build on the little we have and give them a chance.
I love you, Mum, I write a second time. Tell Dad I love him too.
To add to my feelings of lightness that evening I get an email from my dad a few hours later, whose email address I didn’t even know before. I mean, I must have known he had one, just like I know he has a shoe size, but it’s never been relevant to me to know it before.
FROM:Harald (Dad)
SUBJECT:Interior design changes you may approve of
Hi Sophia,
Spoke to Mum. Just to let you know the framed picture of you and Santa which has been on the mantelpiece has been replaced with a group shot of you and your brothers in the Azores anno 2012. I hope you will come and see the changes soon.
Dad
I think that maybe Icouldgo back there soon. That things won’t magically change overnight but perhaps they will have in some small way. Perhaps next time I’ll try to not take any sauce with my potatoes—to say,No thank you, I’d like them plain, please—and see what happens.
That evening I log onto my Twitter, and instead of lurking around and following hashtags I make my own post.
@TheGrassFlower:Unmasking is a terrifying prospect but I think it will be worth it in the end. #ABA-ptsd.
I think I might finally be finding myself. It wasn’t about getting a boyfriend, about adding that one missing piece. It was about shaping and attending to all the small pieces in my life, making sure they fit as smoothly as possible. It’s a process I have to continue all my life, but that’s okay, I know how to do it now.
Blade
Svedala
‘Flower status?’ I ask, coming up behind Sophia and pushing an empty coffee cup into the sink in front of her. She smiles.
‘Lucky bamboo?Dracaena sanderana.’
I kiss the top of her head.
‘See you later. I’m headed to Mum’s.’
Sometimes the best way to resolve trauma and past heartbreaks is to just start living, to do the opposite of what it wants us to do. Trauma wants us to stay scared, locked in our old ways and not move forward, and that’s what we have to be brave enough to resist. This is exactly what Mum and I are finally doing—moving forward.
Mum has finally moved into her own apartment with a view over the garden. It’s just down the corridor from the library and very far from the common sitting room, an important and non-negotiable requirement. Sophia has taken her on a tour of the local amenities, entering each location as a pin on her phone map as they go along, as I’m putting the final touches to her new home. The flat is perfect. Light, cosy and not at allwhat I had feared. This is not an institution but a home. From her apartment she walks out into a corridor where the front door is clearly seen, and once pushed open she’ll find herself in a large, enclosed garden. Benches lined along paths and a vegetable path in the far corner. Mum is enjoying being the newest arrival and having neighbours stick their heads out of doors to spy on her or offer general advice. ‘Don’t go to Mindfulness. It’s basically just gaslighting yourself into thinking you’re doing great.’ and ‘The liquor store does next-day delivery if you tell them you live here. VIP treatment.’
I’ve unpacked the bags and hung the very colourful clothing up. Her wardrobe reminds me of a Picasso painting with its yellows and purples forming various patterns against the white shelves. I put the framed pictures up and deposit a stack of hardbacks on a bookshelf. I have added a room fragrance stick to the cabinet, high enough for it to not spill over should a clumsy arm lash out at it. At the bottom of the bag Mum packed herself, I find the bunch of flash cards. Some old and some recent, the neatness of the handwriting giving their age away. I take out the empty white flash cards I’ve brought with me: They’re made out of cardboard so sturdier and no risk of paper cuts. When I’m done writing I put them in the mix with Mum’s old ones. The move will be disorientating, we’ve been told. She may struggle at first. We’ll be close by, though. Mum will be okay. I can love her and be just her son now, not her carer. We can build a relationship where we get to know each other again.
Where we take a walk or grab one of those ridiculous Swedish bakery goods that always seem to be filled with fluffy vanilla-flavoured double cream. A relationship where I’m not reminding her to take a pill or do her exercises, or feeling the desperation rise inside me as she won’t do what she’s told. My shoulders sink low with relief at the thought of this new life. Ipull out the cards again and read the messages I wrote, hoping they’re as neutral and pain-free as possible. Hoping my mum won’t relive the pain every single time she reads it.
