Caroline Eriksson - The Watcher

I nod slowly. For the majority of my life, I’ve been a spectator, a person who observes rather than participates. This has benefited my writing. My texts have been based on events and developments I’ve either witnessed or heard tell of. The characters in my four books have all been based on people I’ve known, although that hasn’t been evident to those involved. All an author needs to do is sprinkle in a few smoke screens—maybe change the character’s age or profession—to keep people from recognizing themselves and realizing that the book is about them. I’ve written about friends and coworkers, about people I’ve known intimately but also about those I know only by sight. I’ve written about my mother and father, even my sister. I don’t think she’s aware of it.

“Do you remember,” she says, breaking into a smile, “how I used to read your manuscripts before you sent them off? Especially in the beginning before you were published, but after that, too. At least for your first two books. You said I had really shrewd observations, and that I helped you bring out the best in the text.”

Even though I had just set down my glass, I pick it up again. The wine runs down my throat, full-bodied and harsh.

“I’d love to do that again,” my sister continues. “Read what you’re writing, I mean.”

I tell her there’s a little ketchup on her chin, and as she dabs it with her napkin I say, “Like I said, there’s nothing to read.”

“But what about that advice? ‘Dig where you are.’ If that worked before, you could just follow it again, right?”

I lean back in my chair.

“Why is it so important to you?”

“Because I think you need something to really commit yourself to, something to focus on fully and completely while you go through… what you’re going through.”

We look at each other. Finally my sister throws up her hands and mumbles, “OK, OK.” Then something else seems to occur to her. She passes the ketchup bottle to me and asks if I won’t take a few more bites. Apparently I’ve barely touched my food.

I explain that I’m not hungry and push the plate away.

“Where’s Walter tonight?” I ask, shifting the conversation away from me.

“Bowling, I think.”

Up until now, I’ve taken it for granted that my sister and her husband have a good relationship. It has just seemed that way. Suddenly I don’t feel so sure anymore. A married couple that spends every Friday night apart… isn’t that a little odd? And then there’s that business about the trips. Why have they stopped traveling together on weekends and vacations?

I study my sister more closely. Is there something she’s not telling me? Maybe their relationship isn’t that good after all.

“How’s he doing? Have you guys—”

I’m interrupted by noise from the apartment upstairs—high-pitched voices and a series of howls followed by a thud.

“They just moved in,” my sister says, flashing that wry smile that is so typically her. “Three children, all under the age of seven.”

She rolls her eyes, and I pretend to follow her gaze, but I sneak a peek at her face, the arch of her forehead, the lines of her lips. The likeness is striking. I wonder if my sister is aware of it, if she sees whose features she’s inherited when she looks in the mirror—and, if she does, what she thinks about it. If we had a different relationship, I could ask her, but now things are the way they are.

We hear another thud from the apartment above, this time followed by children’s laughter and an adult’s quiet voice. We can’t make out the words, but it’s obvious that the speaker is a warm, loving parent. I pull the back of my hand across my eyes. When I look up again, my sister has crumpled her napkin into a ball. She squeezes it in her hand and studies it intently.

“You know,” she says, “it is possible to live a happy life without children.”

Once again a sense of unreality sweeps in. Everything comes back to me, and at the same time I feel unmoored. My sister says something else—something about Walter and her and how they definitely chose this themselves, but still . She understands that it must be heartbreaking, but still .

“What I meant… and I’m sorry if I’m overstepping here, but are you really going to leave him for something like that? I mean, you love each other.”

She puts her napkin on her plate with what’s left of her food and looks me in the eye. Then she reaches across the table and rests her warm, slightly damp palm on the dry back of my hand. I stare at her fingers covering mine and think that even they remind me of Mama’s. The lump in my throat grows, and I can’t get a word out.

Finally my sister pulls her hand back, and she gets up to clear the dishes.

While she starts loading the dishwasher, I close my eyes and feel the world capsizing. What am I doing here? Why did I even come?

Soon the table is clear except for my empty wineglass. My sister closes the dishwasher.

“There’s ice cream for dessert,” she tells me.

As if in slow motion, I get to my feet, reach for my glass, and walk over to the sink. It takes every ounce of effort I have to keep from dropping the glass on the floor. Nausea shoots through my body, rolling over me in waves. Once I set my glass down, I turn to my sister.

“I think I’m going to call a cab,” I say. “After all, tomorrow’s another day.”

The trip from my sister’s apartment downtown to “my” place in the suburbs takes forty minutes by bus and less than half that by taxi. Cab rides are not a defensible expense based on my current financial situation, but I can’t be bothered to care, not tonight.

I glance at the cabbie’s dark curly hair and then look out the window and watch in silence as the city’s lights flicker past.

I had blamed my early departure on exhaustion and nausea, told her I might be coming down with something. My sister didn’t believe that at all. I could tell from her face, but she didn’t say anything. We hugged before I left.

“See you next Friday,” I mumbled into her hair before I hurried out to the waiting cab. “It’ll be my turn to do dinner then.”

The cab comes to a stop at a traffic light. The red light on my face changes to yellow and then green before we drive on.

It is possible to live a happy life without children. Are you really going to leave him for something like that?

There’s so much my sister doesn’t understand. To start with, she’s never wanted to have children. But it’s more than that between us, so much more than that. I remember our shared childhood, how it felt like the boundaries between us were fluid, as if my sister’s essence were a part of me and vice versa. I remember a time when life was easy, when we were innocent, hopeful, the way children are. Then we grew up. My sister moved away from home, and everything changed.

If I had stayed and opened up to her tonight, if I’d told her about the insomnia and the emptiness and the confusion that is my existence without Peter, post-Peter.

But my sister and I don’t go in for that kind of thing. We leave the piles of stones unturned. We leave unspoken words alone. Maybe she has her own reasons to maintain the distance between us, her own demons she’s wrestling with. Or maybe it’s all due to me, the twisted sister, the distorted mirror image.

The leather upholstery in the cab’s backseat squeaks when I shift around, and the sour taste of wine rises in my throat. The cabbie signals and turns onto my block. The streetlights are broken here, and the lampposts stand like drooping, drowsy giants in the shadows along the side of the road. I stare into the night, feeling the darkness outside boring its way into me.