As I stand there making the dinner, I start to miss Fari. God, this is gross! The bastard! Why in hell should I have to take care of our children—I could just as well drink myself to pieces! Making me miss him. Failing me. Making me lonely. Shitty, shitty love! Why me?! Everything is shattered. I know that she did it on purpose, out of jealousy. She’s jealous, because I am happy and have built myself a good life. So she tries to destroy it. That’s why. The injustice of it all hits me hard in the gut. The sound from the TV becomes a faint hum, which merges with the yells of the kids. Constant squabbles. Strife, violence and jealousy. Why do you have to decide… Ow, let go, that hurts… Mummyyyy… Stop… Crying, my youngest child walks in and nags me to be picked up, as she pulls persistently at my trouser leg. I grab hold of her neck and knock her head into the table. Everything is quiet.
I’m sitting on the floor when I regain consciousness. Everything around me has been painted red. My two eldest children are crying and calling for me, bringing me back to life. Once I have come around, I start searching manically for my mobile phone. I find it and dial 999. I need an ambulance right away, my daughter is not breathing.
I look at her through eyes that are not my own. Her lifeless body, swaddled in a blanket of blood. Feelings race through me. Restlessness. Shock. Repulsion. I feel only one thing and everything at the same time, as a dream. My whole body is shaking. My legs feel drained, so I remain on the floor next to her bloody body. I don’t know whether I am crying. The sounds around me return, and the crying of the two eldest children finally reaches me. I get up, take them into the living room, try to calm them, to soothe them. I hold them tight, and while I sit with them in my arms, our cries become one.
The paramedics get here. I can see on their faces that it is already too late. We drive to the hospital in the ambulance. With a child under each arm, I try to keep calm. Tears run down my cheeks. Don’t take them from me. They are mine. Don’t take them from me. Calm down, Louisa. You’re still in shock. Don’t take my children away from me…
The police show up in the waiting room. They have come for me. Fari has apparently been contacted, because he shows up too. He takes the children and goes into another room, and I am left alone with the police. They start on their rain of questions, questions which I answer as best I can. I tell them everything I can remember.
The doctor also asks me questions. How much anger do I feel towards Fari? How great is my hatred towards my mother? Am I capable of harm? Do I want to harm other people? My children? I don’t want to hurt anyone. I could never dream of hurting anyone. Louisa, it is the 19th of May, the time is 5.55 p.m., and you are under arrest for the crime of murder. You have the right… I cry.
With a firm grip around both my arms, they lead me out of the room, and as we walk down the hall, I see my mother in the waiting room. I am suddenly filled with anger, consumed with the thought of why in the hell she should be here. I lose control, I scream. You shit mother! You are a shitty mother! It’s you that is the shitty mother! I yell it over and over again as the police lead me out of the hospital. They toss me into the car and we drive to the holding cell.
The days pass. I don’t know exactly how many. I am quite sure that I am the talk of the town. I haven’t spoken to anyone I know since I came in here, no one at all. And that’s fine with me, I have no wish to see or to speak to anyone. I will, however, have to speak to the doctor some day soon. I find it hard to fall asleep with my constant stream of thoughts, and when I finally do, I always awaken with the feeling of having slept for eternity. It doesn’t help much that the days are long and full of light. Unlike my soul.
I am admitted onto the hospital’s psychiatric ward—the secure one—and referred to a shrink. I miss my children. A lot. To escape my constant stream of thoughts, I have started walking. Up and down the hallways like a stray mutt looking for an owner. I count my steps. A doctor walks past. His smell, the smell of men, hits my nostrils, and I think immediately of Fari. If he could see me now, he would think it would be best to put me down like the dog I am. That I deserved it. Even though all of this is his fault! Stop using scent! What the hell do you get out of it?! You are a bastard, an abuser of women! You shit! I am immediately surrounded by hospital personnel. They take me back to my room and strap me to the bed. I’m still screaming. Louisa, calm down. Bastard! Never come here again! You mean nothing to me! My broken voice carries itself down the hall. Like the whine of a wounded animal.
After having been on the ward for days, examined closely under the psychiatrist’s magnifying glass, I receive my diagnosis: nervous breakdown. The psychiatrist suspects that this is a result of inherited patterns of behaviour… As soon as I hear this, it feels as if my muscles finally relax. Resignation. When I look at myself in the mirror, a stranger looks back at me. I no longer see myself.
I resume my walks up and down the halls, but these are led now by the conversations I have with the voices, which have taken up residence in my head. Without having consulted with me first, my body has started to walk differently. The steps are shorter, and when I stop and stand still, my feet fight restlessly to carry the weight of my body. I am no longer in control of my body. I am convinced that I share my body with someone else. Another me. The voices in my head never agree: one voice says that I am here because I killed my daughter, while another says that it is the doctors who are out to kill me. That I have been filled with lies and manipulated into believing that I have killed. I don’t know what I should believe.
I am placed before the District Court. It decides that, due to my psychological state, I should neither serve time nor be punished in any other way. Can this really be true? Can I really come home? My reactions are slow. My mother… My mother… My mother… The sentence sits waiting in my throat without wanting to come out. It is my mother’s fault. She is to blame. But my mouth will not obey.
There are conditions for my verdict. Conditions for the freedom I have been sentenced with. My children are taken from me, and complete custody given to Fari. I am classified as incapable of taking care of myself, as someone you have to be careful with, someone who could be a danger to her surroundings. It is further concluded that the best option for me would be to be placed in the care of my mother. To my horror, she has offered to be my guardian. My mother… I stutter. The judge looks at me calmly, smiling faintly. Yes, yes… you can go home to your mother…
I hide away in my thoughts. It would be best if I just ended it all here. I can’t get over the urge to take my own life. I begin looking in the cupboard, I want to be free from the pain of the mind. Now. I can’t, the pain, my body simply cannot handle it. I open the cupboard, where we keep all the little things, and find a cord that would work. I take it out without hesitating.