The Rabbit Hunter

79

Valeria is walking down towards the greenhouses. It’s cool, and she wraps her worn cardigan more tightly around her. She’s thinking about asking Micke to help her with the frame of the new polytunnel. She loves her nursery: the fresh air, the racks of seedlings, the rows of plants and trees.

But today her chest feels empty.

She knows she should transplant her cuttings into pots, but can’t summon up the enthusiasm.

She closes the glass door behind her, moves some buckets out of the way and sits down on the metal stool and stares out into space. When Micke opens the door she jumps and gets up.

‘Hi, Mum,’ he says, holding up a bottle of champagne in a gift-bag.

‘It didn’t work,’ she says bitterly.

‘What didn’t work?’

She turns away and starts to remove dead leaves from a sugar plum just to give her hands something to do.

‘He leads a different kind of life,’ she says.

‘But I thought...’

He trails off, and she turns to look at him again with a sigh. It still surprises her that he’s an adult. Time froze when she was locked up in prison, and her sons somehow remained five and seven years old in her head. They will forever be two little boys in their pyjamas who love it when she chases and tickles them.

‘Mum... he seems to make you happy.’

‘He’ll never stop being a policeman.’

‘That doesn’t matter, does it?’ Micke says. ‘I mean, you’re not really in a position to dictate how people should live their lives...’

‘You don’t understand... while he was in prison I didn’t have to feel ashamed of the way I turned out.’

‘Has he made you feel ashamed?’

She nods, but suddenly isn’t sure if it’s true. An unpleasant chill blossoms in her chest.

‘What exactly happened, Mum?’ Micke asks, carefully putting the bottle of champagne down on the floor.

Valeria whispers that maybe she should call and talk to him. She leaves the greenhouse, wiping tears from her cheeks, and tries to stay calm, but still finds herself walking faster. She pulls her boots off in the hallway and hurries into her bedroom, picks up her phone and calls him.

She gets put through to Joona’s voicemail. She hears the short bleep and takes a deep breath.

‘I need a police officer to come and arrest me for being so stupid,’ she says, then ends the call.

A sob rises in her throat and her eyes fill with tears. She sits down on the bed and covers her face with both hands.