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No drinks with the guys?
Me
Nah, I was a bit tired.
Me
Looking forward to being back to AMS.
Corrie:
Maybe you have to start spending more time here. 😉
Me
Maybe. 😉
Corrie
Slaap lekker, tot morgen. x
Me
Jij ook, tot morgen. x
But I can’t just go back to sleep, for my mind is flooded with thoughts and scenarios. And because dreams are for free, I start checking the exorbitantly expensive real estate scene of Amsterdam. It seems like counting sheep in order to fall asleep, only I become more and more alert with every click on photos, my imagination free-roaming through houses with two floors and a garden. And a fridge holding that magnet meant for my home.
Chapter Twenty
Corrie
The door opens with a click and puts me on alert mode. Mom isn’t supposed to come today. Besides, her steps aren’t so heavy. Could it be Dad? I hear no reply when I call his name, and I get up to check, grabbing the first thing I find at the coffee table: Otto’s favorite toy car. Before I take a step, a large body fills the doorway, making me jump out of my skin—Johan stands there, holding Ada and Otto in his arms. They are just a few months old, sound asleep, and he looks at them before turning towards me, his smile sinister.
‘I’m taking them to meet Oma and Opa.’
‘They…don’t want to meet them.’
‘They will, because they’re mine.’
He’s taking my babies! My heart is about to explode in my chest, pulse in frenzy mode. ‘Give them to me.’
He shakes his head, his eyes that icy transparent green. ‘They are mine.’
‘They are MINE!’ I scream. ‘And you are dead!’
My eyes pop open, and for a moment, I panic, certain I’m having a heart attack. In the darkness, I take one deep breath and let it out slowly, the realization I’m not actually dying sinking in, only for the images my sleeping mind created to start emerging, like scenes of a horror movie.
The kids!
I dart out of bed and run to check with my own eyes. Both are sleeping.
I hope their dreams are blissful, unlike the terror their mum has just lived. Back in the kitchen, I lean against the counter, a glass of water in my hands, telling myself to take small sips, struggling to calm down as I swallow.
My head darts towards the doorway, as if Johan has really shown up. Always the same story, whenever I send an envelope to his parents. I’m almost certain there will be no response, but hope springs eternal and all. Eternal though it might be, said hope doesn’t prevent the nightmares afterwards, only never before have they been so vivid and horrible.
It’s usually his mum’s face I see, shouting at me as I run out of the church. ‘It’s all your fault!’ The phrase is repeated by the mourners like a mantra.
Is it my fault, though? Would Johan still be alive, if we didn’t have that fight? Did I somehow provoke his death by willing him to disappear from my life? I hate that while my reason says no, his mother’s accusation plays in the back of my mind like a maddening tinnitus. I hate that Johan was supposed to be poor, nice Johan, unable to get rid of me, of the relationship I trapped him in. Above all, I hate that his toxicity clings onto my life, like a phantom pain of a stab that has healed.
