Tell Me You’re Mine

Description

In this riveting domestic suspense debut, a woman’s life shatters when she meets a girl she believes is the daughter she lost years ago–and she finds that reclaiming the life she lost might cost her the life she has. Tell Me You’re Mine is a story of guilt, grief, and the delicate balance between love and obsession.

Where is the line between hope and madness?

Three women: one who believes she has found her long lost daughter, one terrified she’s about to lose her child, and one determined to understand who she truly is.

Stella Widstrand is a psychotherapist, a happily married mother to a thirteen-year-old son. But when a young woman named Isabelle steps into her clinic to begin therapy, Stella’s placid life begins to crumble. She is convinced that Isabelle is her daughter, Alice. The baby that tragically disappeared more than twenty years ago on a beach during a family vacation. Alice is believed to have drowned, but her body was never found. Stella has always believed that Alice is alive, somewhere–but everyone around her worries she’s delusional. Could this be Alice?

Stella will risk everything to answer that question, but in doing so she will set in motion a sequence of events beyond her control, endangering herself and everyone she loves.Elisabeth Noreback lives in Stockholm with her husband and three children. She holds a Master of Science in Engineering from KTH Royal Institute of Technology. She started her writing on a psychological thriller during her maternity leave, and now is a full-time novelist. Tell Me You’re Mine is her first novel.***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof***

Copyright © 2018 Elisabeth Norebäck

Stella

I’m lying on the floor.

Legs pulled up, arms around my knees.

Inhale. Exhale.

My heart’s still pounding in my ears, the pain in my stomach has turned to nausea, but at least I’ve stopped shaking.

My name is Stella Widstrand now, not Johansson. I’m thirty-nine, not nineteen. And I don’t get panic attacks anymore.

A gray autumn light streams in. I still hear rain pouring down outside. My office at the clinic looks the same as always. Tall windows, moss green walls. A large landscape painting and a wooden floor with a handwoven rug on it. My old, battered desk, the armchairs in the corners, just inside the door. I remember decorating this room, how carefully I chose every detail. I no longer recall why that felt so important.

I always imagined that I would find her. Not that she would track me down. Maybe she was driven by curiosity, wanting to see who I am. Maybe she’s come to accuse me, so I won’t ever forget.

Maybe she’s here for revenge.

It’s taken me so many years to rebuild my life, to get to where I am today. But even though I’ve left what happened in the past, still I’ve never forgotten. There are things you can’t forget.

I’m lying on the floor.

Legs pulled up, arms around my knees.

Inhale. Exhale.

Henrik kissed me on the cheek before he left for work this morning. I ate breakfast with Milo and dropped him off at school, then headed to Kungsholmen. Just a normal day. Fog on the windows, traffic over the Traneberg Bridge, mist hanging above the gray waters of Lake Mälaren, and no place to park when you get to the city.

Her appointment was an hour before lunch. She knocked, I opened the door, and I knew immediately. We shook hands, introduced ourselves. She called herself Isabelle Karlsson.

Does she know her real name?

I took her wet jacket. Said something about the weather and asked her to come inside. Isabelle smiled and sat down in one of the armchairs. She has dimples.

As I usually do when I meet a patient for the first time, I asked her why she sought help. Isabelle was prepared. She played her role very well and claimed she’s been suffering from a sleep disorder since her father’s death. She needs help dealing with grief. She said she felt lost and insecure, that she found social situations difficult.

It all felt extremely practiced.

Why?

Why didn’t she just say what she wants? There’s no need to hide her real reason for coming.

She’s twenty-two now. Medium height, an hourglass figure with a narrow waist. Short, unpainted nails. She has no visible tattoos or piercings, not even in her ears. Her straight black hair hangs down her back. Still wet from the rain, it glistened against her pale skin, and it struck me how beautiful she is. More beautiful than I ever could have imagined.

The rest of the conversation is a haze. It’s difficult now to remember what I said. Something about the dynamics of group therapy, or something about communication, or how our self-image determines how we see others.

Isabelle Karlsson seemed to listen attentively. She tossed her hair and smiled again. But she was tense. She was on guard.

At first, I felt sick to my stomach, then came the dizziness and the pressure on my chest, making it difficult to breathe. I recognized the symptoms. I apologized and left the room, went into the lavatory in the hallway. My heart raced, a cold sweat ran down my back, and the throbbing behind my eyes sent flashes of light through my head. My stomach knotted up, and I dropped down on my knees in front of the toilet and tried to vomit. I couldn’t. I sat on the floor, leaning against the tile, and closed my eyes.

Stop thinking about what you did.

Stop thinking about her.

Stop thinking.

Stop.

After a few minutes I went back in, told her she was welcome at group therapy next Wednesday at one o’clock. Isabelle Karlsson pulled on her jacket, lifted her hair from her neck, and tossed it. I wanted to stretch out my hand and touch it, but I stopped myself.

She noticed.

She saw my doubt, my desire to make contact.

Maybe that was exactly what she’d hoped to accomplish? To make me feel unsure?

She slung her bag over her shoulder, I opened the door for her, and she left.

I’ve dreamed of this day. Fantasized about how it would happen. How it would feel, what I would say. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. And it hurts more than I ever could have believed.

I’m lying on the floor.

Legs pulled up, arms around my knees.

Inhale. Exhale.

She’s come back.

She’s alive.

Isabelle

“Isabelle!”

I hear Johanna’s voice and turn around. I’m back in the M-building at the far end of campus. The lunch hour is almost over, the room is full of students, and every table and chair is occupied. It’s always packed here at lunchtime. I spin around, but don’t see Johanna until she stands up and waves.

“Come over here,” she calls out.

I have no desire to do so. I’ve spent the last hour on pins and needles. It felt like I might explode from holding all those feelings inside.

Grief. Rage. Hate. And the struggle to hide all of it. To smile and act nice. Be someone I’m not.

I’d much rather eat my sandwich alone before the next lecture starts. Think through what happened at the therapist’s office. But I always have a hard time saying no. I pull my bag up on my shoulder, then start winding my way through all those people, all those backpacks on the floor, all those green tables and red chairs, until I arrive.

Johanna’s the closest thing I have, have ever had, to a friend. And she has been ever since that first horrific period at KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology, when she took me under her wing and let me move in with her. Why, I don’t know. We’re not at all alike. She’s done so much, traveled all over the world. She has purple hair, pierced ears and nose, also a tattoo on her lower back and another on her forearm. It’s of a unicorn spraying fire. She’s cool, confident, knows what she wants.

Susie and Maryam, who are sitting next to her, are also very nice. But I can relax with Johanna, actually be myself.

“Where’d you go?” Maryam says. “I didn’t see you at the mathematics lecture.”

“I wasn’t there,” I say.

“Did something happen?” Susie puts a hand over her heart. “You never miss anything.”

“I had to take care of something.” I pull out the chair next to her, hang my jacket over the backrest, and sit down. It still surprises me when people even see that I’m here. When somebody notices me. Maybe even misses me. I’m so used to being invisible.

I open my bag and take out a sandwich I bought at 7-Eleven. It’s seen better days, so I throw it back in again.

“Is it still raining?” Johanna says.

“Same as this morning,” I answer.

“Ugh, Mondays.” Susie sighs while flipping through a textbook on mechanics. “Do you understand any of this?”

“I wrote down a bunch of stuff about momentum last time,” Johanna says, “but I can’t make sense of it.”

They laugh. I laugh, too. But part of me feels like I’m in a glass cage looking out. I feel like two different people. One is the person people see. But the other one, only I see. She’s the real me, and the difference between the two is profound. Inside me is a ravine of darkness.

And a tendency to be melodramatic.

“Isabelle, you understand it, right?” Maryam asks, turning toward me. “The panic is setting in, we need to start prepping for our exams soon.”

“I promise, if you read the book you’ll get it,” I say.

“Just say it. If we spent our time studying instead of partying, we’d understand it, too.” Susie nudges me and grins.

“Admit she’s right.” Johanna’s napkin hits me in the head. “Admit it, Isabelle.”

“Do you think I’m boring?” I say. “You think I’m a stick-in-the-mud, a nerd who doesn’t know how to have a good time? You’d all be lost without me, you slackers.”

I throw the napkin back at Johanna and burst out laughing when two more hit my head straightaway. I throw them at Susie and Maryam, too, and soon there’s a full-on napkin war at our table. We laugh and scream and everyone in the lunchroom stands up and starts shouting and––

My phone rings.

I do this way too often. Disappear into a fictional dream world. Play ridiculous little movies in my head. Scenes in which I’m as spontaneous and natural as everyone else.

I fish the phone out, look at the screen.

“Who is it?” Maryam asks. “Aren’t you going to answer?”

I send the call to voicemail and put the phone back.

“Nothing important.”

After the lecture I head home by myself. Johanna is going to her boyfriend’s place. I wish I could have gone straight home after my appointment with Stella, considering how exhausting it was to meet her, but I didn’t want to miss anything important at school.

Now I’m on the subway. Alone, one of many strangers. When I moved here I hated that, but now I don’t mind. And after a year in Stockholm I can find my way around pretty well. In the beginning, I was terrified of getting lost. I mixed up Hässelby and Hagsätra, triple-checked how to get wherever I needed to go. In spite of that, I traveled around quite a bit, visited most of the shopping centers that were within reach of Stockholm public transportation.

I’ve taken the commuter trains to their final stations, tried out all the subway lines, and taken most of the buses in the city center. I’ve walked around on the islands of Södermalm and Kungsholmen, through the neighborhoods of Vasastan and Norrmalm, and spent a lot of time in the city center.

I look at my fellow commuters and pretend I know everything about them. That old lady with orange hair and ruby red glasses, she works out at Friskis&Svettis twice a week, wears colorful leggings from the eighties, and stares saucily at men in the gym.

The couple holding hands and kissing each other: he’s a medical student and she’s a middle school teacher. They’re on their way home to their studio apartment near Brommaplan. They’ll cook something together and watch a movie and fall asleep next to each other on the sofa. Then she’ll go to bed, and he’ll take out his computer and watch Internet porn.

The tall, skinny guy in the suit, coughing until he’s bent over double. He’s dying of lung cancer. No one knows how long he has left. How long do any of us have left? Life could end at any moment. It could be over today.

I miss Dad. Four months have gone by since that day in May. Four long, empty months. Afterward, I found out that he’d been feeling sick for several weeks. Of course he didn’t go to the doctor. I didn’t know a thing. Dad was hardly ever sick. Why would he bother me unnecessarily?

To say I feel guilty doesn’t begin to cover it. I went home too rarely. The last time I saw him was at Easter. I didn’t even stay the whole weekend.

Was it selfish of me to move? Dad wanted me to take this chance. He encouraged me to stay in the city, hang out with my new friends on the weekends, and to break free.

Only after he was gone did I learn the truth. And I will never forgive her for what she did. With all my heart I wish she was dead. I hate her.

Hate her.

Hate her.

Hate her.

Stella

I wake up in our house on Alviksvägen in Bromma. I’ve been sleeping on the bed under a blanket. It feels like I’ve been lying here for days.

I asked Renate to cancel the rest of my patients and blamed it on a migraine. Hailed a taxi in the rain on St. Eriksgatan. I don’t remember anything after that. I must have paid the driver when we arrived, left and gone inside. Took off my shoes and my coat, and climbed the stairs up to my bedroom. I don’t remember any of it.

My eyes ache, I have a pounding headache, and for a moment I wonder if I imagined everything. If I dreamed that a woman named Isabelle Karlsson came to my office.

I wish it was so.

Avoiding pain is a basic human instinct, trying to escape rather than face what hurts.

And I do wish I could escape.

At the sound of Henrik’s Range Rover rolling down the driveway, I get up from bed and walk over to the window. It’s still raining. Our neighbor is standing at the fence in a raincoat with his little yapping dog. Milo jumps out of the car and runs toward the house. Henrik greets our neighbor and follows after. The front door opens; I hear him shout hello. I close my eyes a few seconds, take a deep breath, and go down.

Milo slips past me, asks what we’re having for dinner. When I say I don’t know, he goes to the living room and throws himself into one of the sofas. Henrik picks my coat up off the hall floor, hangs it, and says he tried to reach me.

I tell him my phone must be in my purse. He turns his face toward the floor. It’s lying next to my shoes. He picks it up, hands it over to me.

“We wondered if we should pick up food,” he says. “You didn’t make dinner.” It’s more of a statement than a question.

“I haven’t had time.”

“Did something happen?”

“Why do you think that?”

“Your car?”

My Audi is still parked on Kungsholmen, not in the driveway.

“I took a taxi.”

Henrik examines me closely. I give him a quick kiss, avoiding his gaze, and head into the kitchen. He follows me.

“Milo needs to eat,” he says, opening the fridge. “He has to leave soon.”

I forgot about Milo’s basketball practice. I never do that. I sit down at the kitchen table, check my phone. Two missed calls and one text message. Henrik takes a plastic container out of the freezer, shouts to Milo that food is on its way.

“How was your day?” he asks after a while.

“Good.”

“Everything okay?”

“Yes,” I answer.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Henrik stirs the pasta and warms up the Bolognese. While telling me something about plans to visit his parents in the country next weekend and Milo’s basketball game on Saturday. Also, his day at work. He sets the table: plates, cutlery, and glasses, pours water into a pitcher. Tells me more about work.

It’s just like any other Monday, meeting at home after a long day, chatting in the kitchen. My husband is the same, my son, too. Our beautiful home is unchanged. And yet it all feels so foreign. As if I’ve been transformed into someone else. As if I’m a stranger in my own life.

Henrik calls out to Milo to tell him the food is ready. No reaction from the living room. He tells him to come now, but Milo dawdles. I walk to the living room, go over to the sofa. I take off his headphones and pull the iPad out of his hands. I snap at him that he’s in a hurry. Milo is surprised at first, then annoyed. He strides past me and sits down at the kitchen table.

Henrik puts his hand on my arm when Milo’s not looking. I know exactly what he wants to say. Take it easy. What’s the matter with you?

I should tell him what happened. Should talk to him. It’s not like me to keep secrets. I am, after all, a psychologist and a certified psychotherapist. I verbalize my emotions, I discuss things, figure out where the problem might lie. Especially when it comes to something that could transform our lives. Plus Henrik is my best friend. We’re always open with each other, we talk about everything. He knows me better than anyone else, which is what makes it so hard to hide something from him. I’ve never wanted to, either. Until now.

I can’t choke down any dinner. Henrik and Milo talk to each other; I don’t know about what. I hear them, but also don’t. My thoughts constantly return to her.

Isabelle Karlsson.

I wonder why she’s using that name. I wonder how much she knows.

Milo is telling us about some super sweet bike he wants. He takes out his phone to show us. I apologize, get up from the table, and leave the kitchen. I go to the laundry room and try to compose myself.

A panic attack. Only one, in twelve years. I’m losing control and can’t do anything about it. Panicked terror and paralyzing anxiety are taking over my body, invading my thoughts and feelings. Like boarding a runaway train, then being forced to ride it all the way to its final destination. And I never wanted to go there again. I’d do anything to avoid going there again. The thought of exposing my family to this terrifies me.

If I’d known what this meeting would entail, would I have gone through with it? If I’d known who she is, would I have been brave enough to meet her?

If it’s really her.

I can see myself asking her. Looking into her eyes, formulating the question, watching my words reach her consciousness, starting some chain reaction.

No, that’s not me.

Truth? Lie?

Yes, that’s me.

Truth? Lie?

I don’t trust Isabelle Karlsson. How could I? How could I trust her, when I have no idea what she wants? I have to find out more. I have to know.

Henrik is standing behind me; he puts his hands on my arms.

“What is it?” he says. “Talk to me, Stella.”

“I’m tired.”

“It’s not just that,” he says. “I can tell something happened.”

He won’t give up. I turn around.

“I had a shitty day,” I say. “I got a migraine, canceled everything, and went home.” I imply that it has to do with Lina, a patient I’ve had problems with recently. I can tell he understands. Knew he’d interpret it that way.

Henrik touches my cheek and holds me. He asks if I have been contacted by the Health and Social Care Inspectorate. I haven’t. Not yet.

He tells me the last few months have been stressful, but it will all work out in the end. He’ll take Milo to practice today, I can stay home.

I stand at the kitchen window watching them leave.

Go up to the attic. Look in the bag.

The handbag in the attic. I haven’t touched it since we moved here, but after twelve years I still know exactly where it is. I don’t intend to look inside it. If I do, I’ll lose my mind again.

Twenty-one years ago my life was destroyed, but I rebuilt it. I can’t forget that. I chose to live. I couldn’t do anything else. The only alternative was death, and that was something I couldn’t do.

I focused on my education, on my goals. Five years later I met Henrik and fell in love.

I buried her. That doesn’t mean I forgot.

Look in the handbag, in the attic.

My panic attack today was a singular event. It won’t happen again. And I don’t need to go to the attic. What I need is sleep.

By the time I reach the bedroom I feel too tired to shower, too tired to wash off my makeup. Don’t even have the energy to brush my teeth. I take off the wristwatch Henrik gave me and put it in my bureau. My pants and shirt I throw on the chair next to the door. I take off my bra and crawl under the blanket.

The rain’s still beating against the windows when I wake up in the middle of the night. I must have slept deeply, I didn’t even hear Henrik and Milo come home. The room is pitch-black thanks to our thick curtains. I usually prefer that, but tonight the darkness is suffocating.

Go up to the attic. Look in the handbag.

Henrik’s arm is draped over my waist; he grunts when I lift it off. I climb out of bed and pull on my robe. I sneak out of the bedroom and close the door. I pull a chair down the hall and place it under the hatch that leads to the attic. I climb up, grab the handle, and pull it down. Hold my breath when it creaks. I pull down the ladder, climb up, and turn on the lights.

The handbag is in the corner. I move a few boxes before I’m able to see it. A blue and wine-red paisley pattern, given to me by my mother years ago. I pick it up, then sink down to the floor and unzip it.

The spider has soft, limp legs of purple and yellow and a big silly smile. I pull the cord under its belly, but nothing happens. It used to play a few bars of “Itsy Bitsy Spider.” We found it hysterically funny.

A white blanket with gray stars. A small blue dress with lace around the neck and sleeves, the only garment I saved. I bury my nose in it, but it smells only of mothballs.

Photographs. In one stand three happy teenagers. Daniel; his sister, Maria; and me.

I’ve almost always had long hair. It’s thick and dark brown and naturally wavy. When this picture was taken it hung to the middle of my back. I’m wearing a yellow dress with a wide black elastic belt around my waist. Daniel’s arm is draped around my shoulders, he seems cocky and self-assured. His black hair is as disheveled as ever, and he wears a pair of worn jeans and a flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off.

I wonder where he is right now. Wonder if he’s happy. If he ever thinks of me.

I look closely at Maria. Her waist-length straight hair is as black as Daniel’s. The resemblance to Isabelle Karlsson is uncanny. They could be sisters. Twins.

But it’s a coincidence. It has to be.

More photos. A seventeen-year-old holding a small baby. She’s barely more than a child herself. Both she and the baby are laughing. They have dimples.

My eyes sting, and I rub them with the sleeve of my robe. At the bottom of the bag is a red hardback book. I pick it up.

DECEMBER 29, 1992

Heeeeeelp! Shit, shit, shit. I’m pregnant. How could this happen? Or, I know how. But still. So that’s why I’m so tired all the time. So that’s why I’ve been so insanely moody and weepy.

Or like today. Me, Daniel, and Pernilla went to Farsta Center to try on some clothes. I found a pair of super cute jeans, but couldn’t button them even though they were my size. I really tried, but I couldn’t get them closed.

I totally overreacted, I know. I cried in the fitting room. Daniel didn’t get it at all and was insensitive, like he can be. “You on your period? Try on a bigger size, what’s the big deal?” I got so angry I cried even harder. Pernilla chewed him out for me. We skipped shopping and got coffee instead.

How am I gonna tell Mom? She’s gonna hit the roof. Helena will think it’s awful. And Daniel, what’s he gonna say? He’s going to be a father. That’s not what we planned.

My emotions are out of control. My whole life is spinning.

I can’t believe we were so stupid. So irresponsible. All my plans, what am I gonna do now?

It feels like I’m going crazy. I go from laughing to crying every other second. I’m overjoyed. I’m terrified. A human being. Just like that?! Is it possible to already love this little creature inside me?

I want this baby. With him. I hope he wants it, too, because I can’t do anything else.

So, hello and welcome, whoever you are. The rest will have to wait.

US