My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry(42)

When he doesn’t answer right away, she slams the book down again three more times, and points at him menacingly.

“Do you get that my mum is PREGNANT?”

At first, the man looks as if he’s going to open the door. But then he seems to change his mind, and watches in amazement as she pummels the hood with her book.

Elsa hears the click of the doors locking.

“One more peep and my mum comes out and gives birth to Halfie on YOUR BLOODY HOOD!” roars Elsa.

She stays where she is on the highway between the silver car and Kia, hyperventilating, until she gets a headache. She hears Mum yelling, and Elsa is actually on her way back into Kia, she really is. It’s not as if she planned all this. But then she feels a hand on her shoulder and hears a voice, asking: “Do you need help?”

And when she turns around there’s a policeman standing over her.

“Can we help you?” he says again in a friendly tone of voice.

He looks very young. As if he’s only working as a policeman as a summer job. Even though it’s winter.

“He keeps beeping his horn at us!” Elsa says defensively.

The summer-intern policeman looks at the man in the silver car. The man inside the car is now terrifically busy not looking back. Elsa turns towards Kia, and she really doesn’t mean to say it, it’s almost as if the words accidentally fall out of her mouth.

“My mum’s about to give birth and we’re sort of having a hard day here—”

“Your mother’s in labor?” he asks, visibly tightening.

“I mean, it’s not . . .” Elsa begins.

But of course it’s too late.

The policeman runs up to Kia. Mum has managed to get out with great effort, and is on her way towards them with her hand against Halfie.

“Are you able to drive? Or . . . ?” shouts the policeman so loudly that Elsa irately shoves her fingers in her ears and moves demonstratively to the other side of Kia.

Mum looks slightly as if she’s been caught off balance.

“What? Or what? Of course I can drive. Or what? Is there something wro—”

“I’ll go on ahead!” yells the policeman without listening to the end of the sentence, shoving Mum back into Kia and running back to his patrol car.

Mum thumps back into the seat. Looks at Elsa. Elsa searches the glove compartment for a reason not to have to look back at her.

The patrol car thunders past with its sirens turned on. The summer-intern policeman waves frantically at them to follow behind.

“I think he wants you to follow him,” mumbles Elsa without looking up.

“What’s going on?” whispers Mum while Kia carefully potters along behind the patrol car.

“I guess he’s escorting us to the hospital, because he thinks you’re about to, y’know, give birth,” mumbles Elsa into the glove compartment.

“Why did you tell him I was about to give birth?”

“I didn’t! But no one ever listens to me!”

“Right! And what should I do now, do you think?” hisses Mum back, sounding possibly a bit less self-controlled now.

“Well, we’ve been driving behind him for ages now, so he’ll probably get quite pissed if he finds out you’re not actually going to give birth for real,” Elsa states pedagogically.

“OH, REALLY, YOU THINK SO?!” Mum roars in a way that is neither pedagogical nor especially self-controlled.

Elsa chooses not to enter into a discussion of whether Mum is being sarcastic or ironic there.



They stop outside the hospital’s emergency entrance and Mum attempts to get out of the car and confess everything to the summer-intern policeman. But he pushes her back into the car and yells that he’s going to fetch help. Mum looks mortified. This is her hospital. She’s the boss here.

“This is going to be a nightmare to explain to the staff,” she mumbles and rests her forehead in despair against the steering wheel.

“Maybe you could say it was some sort of exercise?” Elsa suggests.

Mum doesn’t answer. Elsa clears her throat again.

“Granny would have thought this was fun.”

Mum smiles faintly and turns her head so her ear is on the steering wheel. They look at each other for a long time.

“She would have found it bloody funny,” agrees Mum.

“Don’t swear,” says Elsa.

“You’re always swearing!”

“I’m not a mum!”

Mum smiles again.

“Touché.”

Elsa opens and closes the glove compartment a few times. Looks up at the hospital fa?ade. Behind one of those windows, she slept in the same bed as Granny the night Granny went off to Miamas for the last time. It feels like forever ago. Feels like forever since Elsa managed to get to Miamas on her own.

“What job was it?” she asks, mainly so she doesn’t have to think about it.

“What?” Mum exclaims.

“You said that thing with the tsunami was Granny’s last journey because she had found a new job. What job was it?”

Mum’s fingertips brush against Elsa’s when she whispers the answer.

“As a grandmother. She got a job as a grandmother. She never went away again.”

Elsa nods slowly. Mum caresses her arm. Elsa opens and closes the glove compartment. Then she looks up as if she’s just thought of something, but mostly because she’d like to change the subject, because she doesn’t want to think about how angry she is with Granny right now.