The Sanatorium(25)

“You don’t want to go back?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to; I feel like I can’t. Haven’t got it in me. The mistakes I made, not stopping to think, not waiting for backup, it made me question my judgment, my ability . . . the fact that I froze like that in the water, it made me realize that I hadn’t dealt with stuff like I thought I had.”

Isaac looks at her steadily. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

Elin finally meets his gaze. Wary at first, then all at once it’s replaced by an anger that’s more comfortable, more familiar. Easier to control.

“We haven’t spoken, Isaac. That’s why you don’t know. We’ve hardly talked since you left.”

“I know.” His voice cracks. “But I didn’t know then what would happen.”

“You mean Mum’s cancer.” Her words are cold.

Isaac’s head dips. “Yes. I didn’t know how to come back, even if I should. I didn’t want to upset things. Rock the boat.” His face is sullen.

Elin stares at him in disbelief, a white-hot fury pushing through her.

He doesn’t get it.

Even now, he doesn’t get it. Doesn’t understand what his absence had done, how it had torn their mother apart.

“Upset things? Mum wanted to see you, Isaac. Not just phone calls, or your bullshit e-mails.” She feels herself shaking. “You didn’t even come to her funeral. Do you know how that felt? How it looked to other people?”

“That’s what it’s all about for you, isn’t it?” He stiffens. “How it looks.”

Elin balks. There it is again, surfacing: the real him. Sharp little words like poisonous darts. “Stop trying to turn it on me. This is about you.”

“I couldn’t get off work. I told you.”

“Rubbish. That’s just an excuse.”

Isaac’s hand goes back up to his eye, tugging at his lid.

“You’re not even going to try to justify it?”

Silence, then: “Fine. You want the truth? I felt like shit, Elin. Guilty. Guilty I hadn’t been back, that I didn’t call enough. Guilty of how I left it.”

Her thoughts skitter. “So you did think about it?”

Isaac nods. “I kept wondering if I should come back, to visit, but part of me knew me being around would have the opposite effect. That it would hurt her.”

“Hurt? Mum had been hurt for years. Ever since Sam.”

Isaac visibly flinches at his name. She’s seized by a sudden desire to ask him: Do you think about Sam, Isaac? Do you?

Because she does. She thinks about him all the time; Sam jumping off the kayak, skinny body making shapes in the air. Sam on the Downs, his kite cutting the sky into pieces of blue. Sam holding her hand when Isaac shouted. Sweet-hot whispers in her ear: I won’t let go.

“Sam, what happened, it destroyed Mum. You know that. That day, the day we found him . . .” Her words are coming rapidly, too rapidly. She’s scared she can’t control them, won’t be able to stop herself from asking him outright.

Did you do it, Isaac? Was it you?

Panic flares in his eyes. “Let’s not go into that now. You wanted to know the reason I didn’t come back.”

Elin wavers. She could still do it, ask him, but what if she scares him off? She’ll be left with nothing.

Finally, she nods.

“Mum . . . she was better,” Isaac falters. “With you, later on, she found an . . . equilibrium. You were always so much better with her than I was. When she got ill, I knew seeing me would make it worse. She’d have stressed about me living here, taking so long to find a job . . .”

Elin looks at him, her cheeks prickling with heat, unable to believe what he’s doing: trying to justify his selfishness. Opening her mouth, she’s about to retaliate, when her attention is pulled toward the window. There’s a helicopter hovering in the sky. It’s painted red and white, a spray of shooting stars branding the side.

“What’s that?” She can hear it now: the rhythmic whump-whump of the blades.

“An Air Zermatt helicopter.” His eyes follow its movement toward the forest.

“Why would it be here?” Elin squints upward. The propellers are moving so fast they’re invisible. A blur.

“I don’t know. Usually they’re used for transporting things—building supplies, avalanche defenses. It’s the cheapest way of getting things around the mountain.”

She catches another movement: two 4x4s, driving up the winding road toward the hotel, tires sending a fine dusting of snow into the air.

The first vehicle has emergency lights on the roof. Lurid, fluorescent orange streaks mark the bonnet. White and orange stars form the shape of a flag on the side. Next to that, a single word in black, in lowercase: “police.”

The cars stop near the entrance to the hotel. Elin watches two groups climb out. Six people, seven. The two from the first car are wearing navy trousers, a two-tone blue jacket, “police” emblazoned on the back. The second group are in more technical clothing—softshells with thin sleeveless jackets over the top.

There’s an urgency to their movements as they rush to the boot of the 4x4, start pulling out various pieces of equipment. Leaning on the tailgate, they tug off their shoes, replacing them with ski boots. As if in unison, they slip on black harnesses. Various carabiners, pulleys, and slings are attached to each, swinging against their chests as they work.