Page 109 of The Secret to Belonging

(you should have changed the locks and installed a burglar alarm)

(you should have left him in jail where he wasn’t a danger to himself or others)

you cross the burnt lawn in silence

two weeks

feel like ten years

Norway was a dream

a fantasy

you stop living out of your suitcase

unpack clothes into a beige dresser

place a framed picture of you with your norsk familie

on the beige windowsill next to the troll key chain

add your silver spoon in its nest of blue velvet

Viking rose

you write Espen often, but haven’t called

too expensive

two mortgages on a house that no longer exists

massive, mounting medical bills

a fight with the insurance company

you’re a hostage

in your parents’ financial dungeon

one night after dinner

you say to your father

you know you don’t have to pay his medical bills, right?

he’s over eighteen

this was entirely his fault

you don’t have to keep taking responsibility

your father frowns

his disease is not his fault

these bills would bury him

ruin his entire future