Because She Loved Him

Words Unsaid.

Anna was brave the next day on the way back from the shops, she had Christian in the pushchair and collected Linda from school on her way home, she had bought all the newspapers she could see with Lena's pictures on or in them. It took more of her money than she was necessarily comfy with but this time she would listen to Benny and Frida, there had been many times that she hadn't listened to them both before and after she had left but this would not be one of those times, there had been something in Benny's voice that had unsettled her and she would heed their words. She was starting to feel very heavy and cumbersome and the walk into the village was starting to exhaust her, the little car of hers had laid unused for many weeks and was tucked to the side of the cottage, she was too big for it now and she hadn't wanted to waste money by driving when she and the children could walk but right at this moment she missed it. They walked up the track and as the little cottage came into view Anna did smile, she was as happy as it was possible for her to be, being here had given her a new perspective on life teaching her once again how simplicity was sometimes all that was needed in life. It looked cosy and homely and the garden was looking good to the side and the back, fully into the autumn season. The garden had been her sanctuary, bringing it back to productivity and restoring all the vegetable beds had not only saved her money it had eased her mind. It also meant that she didn't have to go into the village so much and show her face although people had all been very kind, the humiliation stung that they would have all seen the papers too and seen her downfall all over the TV, and she assumed the Abba publicity machine had gone into overdrive for the tour and that meant that everyone would know that she was no longer part of ABBA , that grieved her nearly as much as losing Bjorn. She'd lost her identity, her life but when she looked at her children her heart told her that it was worth it for them. Nobody in Verum had said a word though, everyone had been refreshingly normal although a couple of the other mum's at the school gates were less than friendly and seemed to be suspicious of her, she supposed that she couldn't blame them really.
Getting home was always a relief and today was no exception, even here right in the south of Sweden it was getting colder and Anna knew from experience that it was shaping up already to be a harsh winter, she fancied that there might be a hint of snow back in Stockholm by now, she didn't miss the noise of the city but she missed the people who were important to her. Cosying up that evening was much needed, she hadn't yet lit the fire this season but it wouldn't be much longer she reflected. The children were both in bed and fast asleep, both of them worn out from their busy day and Anna was just as worn out from the evenings activities. Between getting them fed, loved and into bed and a very busy baby kicking at her constantly she was more than ready for a rest. She snuggled under her blanket and started reading the papers one by one, she waded through Abba's tour statements in which she could see Benny's words protecting her, saying that she felt unable to tour due to Christian being so young, that she would continue to record for Abba but that she would not be touring live again until the children were grown. She smiled and sniffled, none of it was a lie. Benny was clever but the response to Inger had been unkind and Anna felt horribly guilty, she knew Inger was good and she had stepped in because she herself, coward that she was had run away. She still felt she'd had no choice but her guilt for the impact of her actions on innocent people could not be denied. She debated for a while, her eyes seeing nothing and when she'd decided upon a course of action she could live with she forced herself to read the Lena and Bjorn parts of the paper, she pored over every picture of him and saw that it was as Benny and Frida had said, he looked absolutely terrible, not one of the photographers in any of the papers had managed to get him looking straight at them, he looked gaunt and ill to her and it gave her a massive shock that she wasn't expecting. What she had expected was pictures of him looking satisfied, light, happy. Maybe she'd expected him to look triumphant, fit, disgustingly healthy. Instead she could see he'd lost a huge amount of weight and he certainly didn't look triumphant, he looked exhausted. In comparison when she studied the pictures of Lena she saw a woman with dyed blonde hair and too much make up dressed like a whore. She saw wild, calculating eyes and a hard line to her mouth that she'd never noticed before. The pictures had not been what she was expecting so she steeled herself to read the articles, all of them. By the time she'd finished she was more confused than ever, none of them sounded anything like anything Bjorn would say, the stories were lurid and wild and now she thought about it there hadn't been one picture of Bjorn and Lena together, not since the ones of him taken on the steps of her apartment block and that had been months and months ago. She frowned and scrabbled back through every paper furiously no not one picture. Hundreds of Lena and lots of Bjorn but none of them together and now she was looking none of the ones that Bjorn looked happy in had Lena in them and in fact some of them she recognized now as having been edited to remove Anna herself "Fuck me" she mumbled, she read the articles again because something was nagging at her, something wasn't right, she read everything that Lena said specifically, some of it through half closed eyes but she was determined. There was talk of wild sexual encounters, how Bjorn was her man now, how Anna had left him behind, how Bjorn was totally in love with her. She talked of things Bjorn did or said that just didn't sound like him at all and while Anna was first to know he was a changed man she couldn't imagine that he would say or do any of those things. He was sexually demanding as was she but not in the lurid way Lena was describing and certainly in all the years she had known him he had never been guilty of some of the things that Lena so gleefully described. She sat back with a sigh. What on earth was going on? She couldn't make head nor tail of any of the press coverage, something about some of the things Lena said looked familiar and she just couldn't work out why but by now it was long past midnight and her tiredness meant that she just couldn't grasp what it was she was looking for, she snorted because Bjorn would say she was nuts, looking for something that wasn't there, making excuses for her own paranoia and she was had long ago started to believe that he was right. She heaved herself off the sofa, deciding that tomorrow she would light the stoves, she'd got cold and the last thing she or the children needed was to catch a chill. She took herself to bed having checked on the children, both of whom were snoring soundly. She took a long time to get comfortable and she wished lovingly that the child currently tucked safely in her womb was also snoring but alas he or she was wide awake and energetic and Anna resigned herself to yet another sleepless night.