NOVEL

Where He Wants to Be

The Love We Had, Chapter 24

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24

He does not care, that’s how it is, my husband doesn’t care. When he has finished a row of shifts and has several days off, it’s like turmoil that grabs him, and he takes the car and drives home to the farm where he came from. He returns home to his mother and father. He always goes home to mom and dad when he is free because it looks like that’s where he wants to be.

I have this emptiness inside me. It’s like a street without a human being, a street where no human being walks. It’s like a room where no one wants to be, a room in a house in a small town that some say is the ugliest city in the world.

He doesn’t care. That’s how it is. My husband, Lars from the Fjord, travels as fast as he can, away from here, home to the farm.

He does not say I shouldn’t join. No, he doesn’t say it openly. But he doesn’t ask me either, about joining, and he knows and I know it’s not possible, because there is a school for the young, and there is also a family life to be lived in Baker Road 16, and that it is up to me to take care of that part, he thinks.

And I understand after a while that he doesn’t care, because it’s like turmoil that grabs him. As soon as he has a few days off suddenly he sits in the car and drives home to the farm where he comes from, home to mother and father. Always home to mom and dad when he is free. I almost said: Where he is free.

In the beginning, I felt that it was okay. I thought that he needed it. And besides, it was good because then I didn’t have to listen to his talk, these repetitive, slightly condescending statements about me as a mother and as a woman, all the irony and sarcasm, and his indirect criticism when something in the house was not quite in order, or when I was dressed in clothes that caused that he couldn’t see me without being annoyed.

He doesn’t care, I’ve many times thought. He doesn’t care, that’s the truth.

But in fact, it’s different. The opposite is actually the case. He cares too much. He notices and he talks about what he sees, and he’s annoyed, he’s condescending, he’s ironic and spiteful. He comments on how I am dressed, how I walk like a cow across the living room floor. He is clearly annoyed; I often feel that he can hardly stand to see me in front of his eyes.

And when I want to squeeze or when I want to cuddle, he doesn’t care. When I want to talk to him about things in life, about questions that I am concerned with, he turns away. I have thought many times that he doesn’t care, that I could have a different one to cuddle with, a different one to hug and kiss because he doesn’t care, he will not care, it does not matter, I feel if I get a different one.

For a long time, I blocked such thoughts. It couldn’t be that way, I couldn’t fall so deep that I would betray my husband, the man to whom I had promised ‘eternal love’.

I resisted, I was steadfast, I had faith as long as I could on the big joint project that I and he as wife and husband had designed and promised each other to build together.

I resisted, I was steadfast as long as I could, until that day — that day when it happened, that night at the hotel the local blues band played, and my gaze suddenly had met two serious eyes who took care of me, that held me solid.

The story that the novel tells takes place in a small industrial town at the end of a fjord in western Norway. The story being told and the characters are fictional.

The photos included in the chapters are taken on location in Odda and in the Odda Smelter (Odda Smelteverk, 1906–2003), the carbide factory that is part of the story.

The Love We Had

Part 1 The Longest Night -chapters 1–3, told by Lars. Part 2 The Light Inside -chapters 4–17, told by Aslak. Part 3 Save Our Secret Love -chapters 18 — XX, told by Eira.

For quick access to all chapters, go here.

Previous chapter: 23 I Have Taken Steps Across a Boundary

Next: Chapter 25 Days and Nights Gone By

Øivind H. Solheim writes fiction, essays and articles aiming to help others understanding life, other humans and themselves. He has published five novels, two non-fiction books and a poetry book.

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