Run Run as Fast as You Can (3 page)

"No, she does love me. I know she does," he mumbled to himself. "I'm not going to give up this easily. I'll fight for her if I have to."

Determined, Thomas rose from his chair, went into the living room, and turned on his computer. He went online and found a local florist. He ordered seven roses to be delivered to Ellen's house, one every day for a week.

That'll show her how much I love her
.

As the order went through and he paid with his credit card, he leaned back expecting to feel satisfied, but something was still very wrong. He still felt angry and so jealous. What was his Ellen doing with that creep? Suddenly, a thought struck him. What if this guy was mean to her? What if he hurt her? Thomas felt the anger rise inside of him and got up from his chair. He could not let that happen, could he? He loved her and that meant he had to protect her.

Thomas stormed out the door and jumped into his car. There weren't that many restaurants on Fanoe Island. He turned on the engine and drove towards town, where most of them were, then parked the car. Knowing how much Ellen loved the place, Thomas went to
La Petite Cuisine
first and, just as he thought, there they were, sitting at a corner table. Thomas asked to get a table near the window so he could watch them without them seeing him. He sat down, not taking his eyes off of Ellen for even a second. He ordered a roasted duck and some wine and finally the waiter left him alone. Thomas observed the two of them as they ate and talked. Ellen laughed at something the handsome man had said. The sound of her laughter felt like knives to Thomas's heart. The handsome man put his hand on top of hers. Then he reached over and caressed her cheek. She chuckled and kissed his hand.

"Are you alright, monsieur?" the waiter asked.

Thomas looked up and nodded while swallowing his tears. "Yes. Yes. I just had some bad news. It'll get better."

"I brought you your wine."

"Thank you," Thomas said and forced a smile. "Just what I need."

"Very well, monsieur," the waiter said and poured some into Thomas's glass. Thomas tasted it and nodded, still with his eyes fixated on Ellen and the handsome man. The waiter then poured more into his glass.

"Just leave the bottle," Thomas said.

The waiter nodded before he left. Thomas gulped down the entire glass of wine, then reached for the bottle and poured some more into it. Ellen was laughing out loud. Thomas closed his eyes. How desperately he wanted to be in that seat across from her right now. Oh how he wanted to be the one to make her laugh like that.

Thomas opened his eyes and looked at his beautiful Ellen across the room. He didn't care for the way the handsome man was looking at her, like he wanted to devour her.

If that guy ever hurts her, I swear I’ll kill him. I’ll cut off his balls and feed them to him. I swear I will. Please Ellen, don't be with that guy. If you still love me, then show it to me. Show me, give me a hint.

And, just like that, she did. Just as Thomas had wished, Ellen leaned down and reached a hand into her purse and pulled out a hair tie. She pulled her hair back and tied it into a ponytail.

Thomas gasped and smiled. That was her signal. She did still love him. She knew how much he loved it when she wore her hair like that. It was her sign to him. It had to be.

Thomas lifted his glass and pretended to be saluting her, imagining that he was the man sitting across from her.

"To our love," he whispered. "A love that will last till death parts us."

6

November 2013

I
KEPT HAVING
nightmares. I dreamt about girls being trapped in small rooms with men abusing them over and over again … Just like in the stories I had been told by the many kids we had seen on our trips to look for the missing Danish girls in Eastern Europe.

I woke up again and again with my heart pounding in my chest and tears rolling across my face. Around five a.m., I couldn't sleep anymore and got out of bed. I grabbed my laptop and walked downstairs. The light was on in the kitchen and, at first, I thought I had forgotten to shut it off, but then I realized someone was in there.

"Victor?" I asked and walked closer. He was sitting with his head bend over his book, writing in his notebook like his life depended on it.

"What are you doing up, buddy? It's only five a.m."

He didn't answer or look at me, but I was used to that.

"What are you writing in the notebook?" I asked and walked closer. I looked at it from above his shoulder. It looked mostly like random numbers and letters. "What is all this, buddy?"

He didn't answer, but kept on writing. I sat down next to him with a knot in my stomach. I didn’t like this; I didn't like that he wasn't sleeping properly. Was this because of me? Because I had been gone too much lately? Was this his way of telling me? I touched his hair. He froze. I removed my hand in fear that he would scream like he had before when I touched him.

"Why aren't you in bed, Vic?" I asked. "You need your sleep. You know that. You have school today and I don't want you to be all tired and indisposed. Maybe you should go up and get an hour. How long have you even been down here? What made you get out of bed, huh? Did something wake you up?"

Victor turned his head and looked directly at me. I smiled. I wanted so desperately to reach out and grab him in my arms but held myself back. I didn't want to ruin the moment. "What is it, Victor? What woke you up?"

"Bats," he said. "The bats woke me up."

Then he turned his head and returned to the book.

"Bats?" I asked. "I didn't hear them."

"Of course you didn't hear them. You were asleep," he said. "I heard them. I heard them scream."

I stared at my son, not knowing what to say to him. I was thrilled he was talking to me, and decided to just enjoy that.

"What are you writing?" I asked.

"Numbers."

"I see that. What kind of numbers?" I leaned over to better see but the numbers still made no sense to me. "I like the drawings there," I said, hoping he would explain to me what it was, but Victor had decided that was enough talking for now and wasn't answering me anymore. After a little while, I pulled out my laptop and opened it. I made myself some coffee and went through my many e-mails that had piled up while I was away. Every now and then, I glanced at Victor, enjoying just sitting there with him even if we didn't talk.

Around seven, Maya came down and we had breakfast. Victor ate and got dressed and soon I had shipped the both of them off to school. I answered a couple more e-mails, when suddenly I heard the front door open and someone walk in. A second later, my friend Sophia peeked in through the kitchen door.

"Hello? Anyone home?" she asked.

I smiled and gave her a hug. She had her baby Alma, who was now nine months old, in her arms. She put her on the floor and kept an eye on her while she sat down. Alma quickly crawled towards the cabinets and started opening drawers. Sophia visited my house almost every day with the baby, so I made sure to keep only tablecloths and dish towels for her to pull out in the drawers she could reach. Now she was covering her head with a towel and giggling underneath.

"She does that all the time," Sophia said.

"Coffee?" I asked.

"Don't mind if I do," she said. "I want to hear everything about your trip. But I only have an hour, then I'm off to meet with my mothers’ group downtown. The old movie theater is having an event where they're showing a movie and you're allowed to bring your baby."

7

November 2013

L
ISA WAS IN
a hurry to get everyone out of the house. She was meeting with her mothers’ group downtown at the movie theater and didn't want to be late.

As soon as she had shipped the kids off to school and Christian had left for the office, Lisa grabbed baby Margrethe and ran upstairs with her. She changed her diaper and put her on the floor where she could play in the bedroom while Lisa got herself ready. She put on jeans and a nice shirt, but realized it had a stain on the shoulder. With a dissatisfied grunt, Lisa pulled the shirt off and found another. It wasn't as pretty as the one she wanted to wear and it made her look chubby around the waist. Lisa looked at herself in the mirror and grunted again. Christian kept telling her she was getting too skinny, but that was just something he said to make her feel better. She stared at the shirt. This wasn't at all the way she wanted to look for this event. She had planned on wearing the other one and looking amazing; that way, every other mommy in the movie theater would look at her with envy in their eyes, thinking
how does she do it
? It annoyed Lisa and she picked up the first shirt again to look at the stain and see if it was something she could hide somehow.

Lisa sighed. It was all over the shoulder. A big red stain. Too visible on the salmon colored shirt that was her favorite. How infuriating. Lisa growled and threw the shirt on the bed again. The shirt was completely destroyed. Her favorite shirt ruined. She took in a couple of deep breaths to calm herself down. She had been seeing a therapist, just a couple of times, because she hadn't been able to control her anger recently. The therapist had taught her to breathe calmly and count backwards. Lisa closed her eyes and tried it. It seemed to help a little. Margrethe started fussing and Lisa reached down and picked her up in her arms. Holding her close always made her so calm and happy.

Lisa walked downstairs with Margrethe on her hip and put her in the playpen while packing the bag with diapers, pacifiers, and extra clothes in case of an accident. She let out a satisfied sigh, thinking it was going to be great just spending the day at the movie theater with all the other mommies. It had been years since she last went to the movies.

"Let's go sweetie," she said and smiled at Margrethe who grinned with her two small teeth in the lower part of her mouth. She was a plump baby, but that would wear off soon enough, the doctor had said.
As soon as she starts to walk it'll come right off.
Lisa didn't like the fact that her baby was so fat. None of her other kids had looked like this. Margrethe took more after her daddy. She even had the same nose, the poor thing. Lisa grabbed her bag, put it over her shoulder, and had just picked up Margrethe when the doorbell rang.

"Now what?" she asked and walked towards the door. She opened it with an aggressive motion. A man was standing outside the door.  He looked at her.

"Yes?" she asked with irritation.

"I'm the plumber. Your husband called us and told us you had problems in the kitchen?"

"My husband called you two weeks ago and you choose to show up now?" Lisa asked.

"Yes. We are very busy, Mrs. Rasmussen. You know what it’s like."

"No, I don't. I'm not a plumber. How should I know what it’s like?" she asked and looked at her watch.

The plumber chuckled. "No, of course you don't. It's probably a long time since you've been out in the real world, huh?" he said and smiled at Margrethe. "I mean staying home with the baby and all. Must be nice and relaxing. Getting off the rushing highway of life, right?"

I dare you to try it for one day, you creep
.

"Can I come in?" he asked.

Lisa showed him inside and he climbed under the sink in the kitchen. Lisa placed Margrethe in the playpen again.

"So how long do you think this will take?" she asked and looked at her watch again.

"It won't be long," he said and brought in his tools, then crawled in under the sink again.

Half an hour later, Lisa was getting impatient and asked again. "So is it going to take much longer?"

"No. Not so much longer," he replied.

"Good, cause I have somewhere to be."

He peeked out from under the sink with a smirk. "Oh, do you now? Yeah, you must be really busy. Get a lot of stress from staying at home, do we?"

Lisa stared at the plumber, wondering if he really thought he was being funny or was he flirting in an odd way? She couldn't tell. Anyway, he annoyed her. She looked at her watch again. She had planned on going to the pharmacy before the movie theater. If she skipped that and left within the next fifteen minutes, she could still make it. She thought about leaving him in the house and telling him to just shut the door when he was done, but she didn't trust him. Heck she didn't trust anyone enough to leave them alone in her house.

He'll just leave an awful mess. Look at him. Look at those dirty shoes. And he smells too. The entire house stinks already.

"So what's the big hurry?" he asked.

"I have somewhere to be," she said. "Could you please just hurry up?"

"I'm working as fast as I can," he said. "Don't worry."

Five minutes later he pulled out from under the sink and started walking towards her. Lisa smiled. "Are you done?" she asked.

He nodded. Lisa was about to get up and pick up Margrethe.

"I'm done pulling the old thing down," he said. "I have the new one in the car."

Lisa stared at the plumber who walked out the door then came back with a pipe and some more tools.

"But it doesn't take long to put that in, does it?"

The plumber shrugged. "Shouldn't be more than an hour or so."

An hour?

Lisa felt like screaming. She couldn't believe this. Of all days this was happening to her, it had to be today, when she was looking forward to spending a couple of hours in the movies with her baby and friends.

The plumber smiled, then walked back into the kitchen with his tools. He threw them on the floor and left a mark in the hard wood. Lisa closed her eyes and started to count backwards from one hundred. She breathed deeply and thought of positive things, like her therapist had taught her. She tried to picture the ocean, the beach, but it was too messy with all that sand. Then she pictured mountains, the beautiful Alps that they used to go skiing in during the winters before they had children. It helped a little. Her breathing calmed down, her shoulders fell back into place.