She slaps the bed, I suppose in lieu of slapping me. “Your wife. Your wife. Where is this fucking wife? Wives take care of their husbands and children. Who takes care of you? Who cares for your child? Who is the woman that has devoted herself to you? I am. I am.” She screams the last. “I am!”
She lowers her voice again. “If anybody is your wife, I am. Some stupid vows don’t mean shit. Actions have meaning. I show you every day that I love you. In practice, I am your wife. I am your wife.” Again, she shouts and smacks the bed. “I am your wife!”
She bursts into tears and sits on the edge of the bed with her head in her hands.
I sit next to her and take her in my arms. “I’m sorry,” I say.
She buries her face in my shoulder and sobs. She smells of citrus and flowers. It takes a while for her to cry herself out. Then she looks up at me with heartbroken brown eyes. “Can I at least sleep beside you?” she asks.
I nod. “Yeah.” I stand up and take off my jeans. She moves to the head of the bed and pulls back the covers. I can’t sleep next to her if she’s naked. Something will happen. I take a T-shirt from a drawer and hand it to her. “Would you please put this on?”
She gets it and she’s too beaten down with disappointment to argue. It serves as a baggy, miniskirt-length nightgown. It doesn’t detract from my desire for her. She would be sexy in a potato sack. I usually sleep naked too, but keep my boxers on.
She doesn’t try to snuggle up. I keep turning her words over in my mind, picturing her naked in front of me. Is it possible to pass through this life without causing pain? Not even to the ones we care about the most? I fake sleep.
Mirjami interlaces the fingers of her left hand with those of my right. I feel a slight vibration ripple through the mattress. She’s masturbating. She sobs when she comes. I keep my eyes shut and pretend it isn’t happening.
21
At nine the next morning, a gentle knocking on the bedroom door wakes me. I ignore it, want to lie here, doze, and enjoy a hangover day. Hangovers get a bad rap. The vicious ones are awful, of course, but the milder ones, if I don’t have to do anything, can be rather enjoyable. The lethargy that accompanies them forces me to relax. Pizza and Jaffa-orange soda-the combination of sugar and salt, are the best cure. Most people don’t realize that the cause of a hangover is in large part not the consumption of alcohol, but the body’s outrage at being deprived of it. Alcohol, in a sense, causes instant addiction. Hence the hair-of-the-dog cure.
Mirjami doesn’t wake. The knocking turns to pounding. Jenna shouts, “I need to come in.”
“Then come in,” I shout back. She enters and sees us in bed together. She already knew Mirjami and I were together in here last night from the shouting. Her expression is neither approving nor disapproving. She couldn’t care less, ignores me and begins shaking Mirjami awake. “You have to take me to the doctor,” Jenna says.
Mirjami looks dog-sick. “Yeah, OK. Give me a minute.”
Jenna returns with coffee for her to expedite the process.
“Why don’t you have Sweetness take you?” I ask.
“If you took one look at him this morning, you’d know. Besides, Mirjami promised.”
“Take a taxi,” I say.
She yells at me. “If I wanted a fucking taxi I would have called one, and if I want your advice I’ll squeeze your fucking head!”
I’ve been yelled at quite a bit in the past few hours, I think unjustly. I cover my head with a pillow and mind my own business. But Anu starts to cry. There will be no late-sleep-in hangover. I get up to tend to my daughter. I’m in her room and hear the door slam as I’m rocking her. Sweetness and Jenna sleep in the spare bed in her room. Sweetness doesn’t even stir at the sound of Anu’s screams. His hangover must be a killer. I told Mirjami she could use Kate’s Audi whenever she liked. They must be taking it.
From outside, I hear a whoom. It must have been loud for the noise to have penetrated the thick, bulletproof windows. I lay Anu down in her crib, grab my cane and hobble to the big window that looks out over Harjukatu. The Audi is in flames, sooty black smoke rolls off it. Jenna is on the sidewalk, not moving. Mirjami is in the road, rolling around. She wore cutoff jean shorts and a light top with straps. They’re burning and her hair is scorched off.
At the top of my lungs, I yell for Sweetness and grab my cell phone from the table beside my chair, dial 112, emergency, and explain that a car has exploded, at least two people are hurt, and request ambulances and firefighters.
Sweetness comes out of the bedroom with a hand in his underwear, scratching his balls. “What the fuck?” he asks.
I just point. He looks and tears out the door, runs to the scene in his underwear. He’ll take immediate care of them as best he’s able. I may be at the hospital with them for many hours. I pull on jeans, a shirt and sneakers, put Anu in her carriage and toss everything she might need for the day into it with her, grab Sweetness’s clothes from last night off the floor where he tossed them before passing out, throw them and his shoes in the carriage as well and then go down to the street. A fire truck, police cruiser and ambulances arrived in the ten minutes it took me to make my way down. A good response time, thank God, and the fire is out.
Jenna is in an ambulance. I look in. She’s conscious. She had on shorts as well. They’re soaked with blood and her legs are smeared with it.
The EMTs have placed Mirjami on a gurney. Her burned-away clothes are stuck to her skin in places. The burns lessen in severity where the flames traveled up her body. She’s quaking, in shock. The EMTs inject her with something and insert an IV in her arm.
Sweetness and I talk to the cops. I tell them that Mirjami’s parents live in Rovaniemi. Sweetness gives them Jenna’s parents’ names and address. They’ll notify the girls’ families.
Sweetness pulls on clothes while I arrange Anu in her car seat, and we follow the ambulances to the emergency room.
After identifying ourselves, we’re allowed into the theater where they’re being treated. A doctor reports. The brunt of the fire, inside the car, must have been under the floor of the driver’s side. Jenna has only minor burns. The doctor discovered, though, that Jenna was pregnant, and the shock of the fire or flinging herself from the vehicle-something about the trauma of the incident-caused her to lose the child. Otherwise, she’s fine. Tears bead up in the corners of Sweetness’s eyes.
He panics about his mother being in danger, calls and explains, asks her to stay in a hotel. She refuses, says she’s not going anywhere. He buries his face in his hands.
Mirjami, however, suffered severe burns. Apparently, in panic, she had difficulty opening the car door so she could get out of it. Her legs are burned so badly that they’re charred in places. She’ll require skin grafts. Possibly on her midsection as well. Her neck and face are singed and look worse than they are. The scarring in those areas will be minimal. She’ll be in severe pain when she wakes. Therefore, the doctor wants to keep her unconscious for a couple days, start her on a morphine drip as soon as she awakens. He advises me to go home. There’s nothing I can do here. He takes my number and promises to call me so that I can be with her when they bring her out of the coma.
Sweetness, Jenna-in a hospital gown-Anu and I ride home in silence. We’ve been at the hospital for eleven hours, with nothing but coffee and tasteless sandwiches. During that time, we mostly sat in the hallway without speaking. To talk would have led to the discussion of who might have done this, and neither Sweetness nor I was prepared for that yet. It would have turned to anger that we couldn’t vent in an ER.
We drive through Hesburger and go home. The Audi is gone, towed away by the police to investigate the cause of the fire.