Right after the funeral, Hedvig put the doll in a box and hid it in a drawer in the attic. That lasted a week. Then she unpacked the box again, balling up tissue paper in her fists.
One Cecilia stuck in a wooden box was more than enough. Hedvig put the doll back on her bookshelf. Let it berate her from there – Lord knows she deserved it.
Not that the doll showed much emotion, those days. It held the same closed-off expression that Cecilia had mastered during her short life. Only later did it begin to thaw, especially in times of need, guiding Hedvig's way.
She grew to suspect that some of her sensibilities had made it into the doll, and she became convinced of it during one of Agnes's visits, when her sister kept throwing furtive glances at its place on the mantle. Agnes had never shown any sign of seeing beyond what was in front of her face – if she could tell some expression in the doll, it wasn't just Hedvig projecting, or at least not in the conventional sense.
Seeing Agnes's discomfort, she wondered if she should shut the doll away, but instead found herself arranging it to be more visible and face in their direction.
Part of her wanted so much to blame Agnes for all of this: for turning Cecilia away in her hour of need, for refusing to raise her, even for having her in the first place – but what would be the point? She knew her sister. Agnes had always been easy enough to lead into mischief, but mortally anxious about being caught, ready to lie if necessary. No matter how Hedvig had scoffed at her that being scolded was nothing and being spanked not much worse, Agnes had struggled to keep adult faces smiling and adult voices mild, as if cracking the surface would drop her into a bottomless void. Facing the consequences had become unthinkable.
So Hedvig had taken over the reins, and in doing so had come to love this frail, sad-eyed little girl more than anyone else in the world. Which meant that the responsibility was hers, wasn't it? She couldn't shove it back at her sister, not after seventeen years.
She had honesty believed that Cecilia was all right this time. For once, she'd gone off with a light heart, trusting Hulda and Arthur to take care of her.
And then she got that telegram calling her back... Oh, she could rip that man in half. Would have, if it had done any good.
"You can't keep watch over people," she'd told Hulda in an attempt at comfort.
Yet here she was, lingering in Sweden month after month, even though her art was waiting for her in Paris... along with Rose.
Maybe the fact that she had been so happy there was the reason she hesitated to return. She wandered aimlessly around town, drawing little sketches, making the occasional portrait on commission, but nothing came of it. Her repentance was fruitless, her sense of duty too late, and in the end even the doll seemed impatient with her, shadows forming a frown on her face no matter which way Hedvig turned it.
Rose sent letters – kind letters with news from France and their neighbourhood, short and not overly chatty. Hedvig read them and put them aside, having not the heart to answer and try to form some kind of explanation.
Then another letter came, a cartoon of a Rose herself tossed on a bed, masses of loose hair streaming in all directions and tears the size of fists rolling down along the curls. The only text was a quote: "Will you never return? Will your delicious breezes never cool my burning bosom?"
Hedvig couldn't help it; she laughed. Looking up, she found that the shadow on the doll's forehead had deepened, and the mouth was pressed into a stern demand.
"All right," Hedvig said. "She's lost patience with me, same as you, and I dare say she's right."
That night, she sent a note back:
"'And Art Thou Gone Yes Thou Art Gone Alas' cried the artist and it was enough to give anyone the fan-tods. How can the object of such affection do anything but comply? My journey is now booked for the seventh."
A week later, packing the last of her bags, she got a telegram:
"ABOUT BLOODY TIME ROSE"
Her heart lightened, and she packed up the last of her things, including the doll, which she wrapped up well and placed carefully in her hand luggage.
Even stepping on the ship and hearing French spoken again, she found that Sweden started melting away behind her, only the weight in her bag serving as a reminder.
Once she was back in the apartment, she carefully placed the doll on a shelf in her studio, where it could see her work. She looked into the doll's eyes, and while sorrow remained, anxiety subsided. Yes, this was right.
"I should have brought you here a long time ago," she said. Cecilia had never wanted to travel, to be stuck alone in an unknown city while Hedvig worked. Hedvig had relented, but seeing the doll's trusting expression now, perhaps she shouldn't have.
Rose put an arm around Hedvig's waist and raised her other hand to gently caress the doll's cheek. "So this is Cecilia. Poor little dear."
"It's only a doll," Hedvig said sharply and turned away. Cecilia was gone, and there was no mistaking a substitute for the real thing.
"If you say so." Rose took the doll down and cradled it, humming Brahms to it in her soft alto voice.
Tears welled up in Hedvig's eyes, and she relented, hugging Rose in a way that brought the doll in between them.
Very quietly, Rose whispered to the doll, "Yes, I will."
"Will what?"
"Will take care of you." Rose looked up, smiling, and Hedvig held her closer.
"You should have been a mother."
"Should have," Rose said, still smiling. "Wasn't. Anyway, I have given birth to ten new paintings since you left. Come, I'll show them to you!"
With the doll still on her arm, she nodded for Hedvig to come along.
Over the years, having the doll around became a comfort, rather than a jolt. Hedvig had no qualms to leave it with Rose whenever she travelled; only when they travelled together did she bring it along.
She never showed it to her sister again. Agnes seemed determined to pretend that Cecilia had never existed, devoting all of her attention on the smaller child, Vera. The pampered girl would sit there squished between her mother's fussing and her father's demands, a brittle smile fixed in place and an anxious glint in the bright eyes.
She's ruining that child, Hedvig thought, but she pushed it away. It was none of her business; Agnes certainly wouldn't thank her if she tried to interfere.
There were times when all Hedvig wanted was to hug her sister and mess up her hair, like in the old days, but it was accompanied by an increasing desire to shake some sense into her as well. Especially whenever she mentioned Cecilia – or God forbid, Rose – and Agnes' smile stiffened, the conversation taking an abrupt turn to something else.
Rose's family was easier to handle. A mess, like her own, with half-siblings of half-siblings and parents that appeared and disappeared like phantoms, but at least the drama was one step removed and she could remain a spectator. Unlike Agnes, they seemed to take Hedvig's presence in Rose's life for granted, and she found herself more willing to spend time with them than with her own, even if she always echoed Rose's sentiment at the end of it: "Finally alone!"
The war forced them to return to Sweden, but Hedvig still travelled as much as she could, seeing the country now that she couldn't see the world. Little Vera settled down with a calm, patient man and had a daughter that, even as a toddler, radiated so much calm patience that Hedvig could put the last remaining worry away. If those two couldn't sort Vera out, nobody would.
She was prepared to leave concerns for her family behind, once and for all, when the war ended and the borders opened once again. Then a young man, with Arthur's chin and Cecilia's eyes, appeared on her doorstep, demanding money.
"I'm in a desperate situation, see," Martin said. "Can't see any other way out of this. Short of shooting myself."
It was dramatic hyperbole, not a serious threat, but she looked into those mournful eyes and turned around, door open, to count out all the bank notes in her purse.
"I'm leaving the country on Thursday," she said. "So don't come back asking for more."
"I won't." He gave her a wide, radiant smile, and she half wanted to shove him out the door, half to bring him inside and sort him out – but it was too late for that. Always too late.
In the end, she went home to Paris, sad and crabby, and confessed the whole thing to Rose.
"You can't change the past," Rose pointed out. "And you can't see everything in advance, either. Not even you."
"Then what's the point?" Hedvig asked, raising her chin from its position on her fists. "Why see anything at all, when I can't see what really matters?"
Rose put the paintbrush away and pondered the question. "I suppose you'll just have to change what you can and let providence handle the rest."
"I don't believe in providence," Hedvig said.
"Well, I don't believe in coincidence." Rose took her coffee mug and gave it an extra glance to reassure herself that it wasn't the paint water. "My life has been much too strange for that. Hasn't yours?"
"I'd hate to think that there's some bastard up there deciding that things are going to rot."
Rose raised a shoulder in a helpless gesture, and they both sat in silence for a while, until Hedvig shook it off and stood up.
"I want to get smashed. Do we have anything?"
"Wine?"
"That's not enough. Can we get absinthe? That's what they used to get in the olden days, isn't it?"
Rose laughed and came up to wrap her arms around Hedvig's waist. "I doubt it. But we can add dancing, and kissing..." She demonstrated by kissing Hedvig on the mouth, and then finished: "And drink more of the wine."
Even after more than twenty years together, Hedvig still melted in Rose's arms. "I suppose I shall have to," she said, kissing her back.
Agnes never came to Paris, nor did Vera. During the early years, Hedvig had made a few courtesy invitations, but after that she didn't bother. As she got older, she found that her patience with other people was running out, and it was easier to just meet them whenever she went to Sweden. Even Hulda, whom Hedvig wouldn't have minded bringing home for a visit, was too set in her ways to leave her country. Hedvig just got used to thinking of her friends and family in Sweden as being intrinsically linked to that place, as much as the trees and the buildings.
Thus it was a surprise when Elisabeth wrote to her, explaining that she'd soon come to France in an au pair situation, and could she pay her great-aunt a visit?
Hedvig didn't see many visitors anymore – most of her friends were artists, and all those histrionics were simply too much work at her age – but remembering the calm little toddler, she got curious and wrote back to welcome Elisabeth over.
She hadn't really expected Elisabeth to be much like Vera, and even less like Agnes, but still it amused her to find how very much like her father she was. Not just the heavy-lidded eyes, the curly auburn hair, and the smile, but her movements and way of speaking. As they spoke, Hedvig took out a sketch pad, trying to capture the likeness.
"Hope you don't mind," she said.
"Not at all." But the intense scrutiny did seem to make Elisabeth uncomfortable. She moved around the room, brushing her fingers against books and ornaments – and then her eyes caught the doll's.
The doll was smiling, which it very rarely did. Its arms were slightly lifted forwards. Slowly, carefully, Elisabeth lifted it down from the shelf and cradled it close.
"What's her name?"
"Cecilia," Hedvig said, putting her pencil down. Elisabeth didn't hold the doll like a child with a toy. There was something about the whole scene... "Madonna della seggiola," she thought out loud.
"Is that her name too?"
"No. You're pregnant, aren't you?" The thought brought up too many memories, and a sense of dread that made the question come out harsher than Hedvig intended, but Elisabeth smiled.
"How did you know? We haven't told anyone else. We wanted to wait until after the wedding – for mum's sake."
"Probably best," Hedvig said, returning the smile.
"You can come if you like. To the wedding, I mean."
Weddings were not Hedvig's favourite pastime, but the eagerness in the young face won her over. "Can I bring my companion?"
"'Companion'? Is that like a maid?"
"No," Hedvig said. "Not like a maid."
Did Elisabeth realise the implication? She showed no surprise, or anything but a mild curiosity.
"Of course," she said. "I'll put her down as your plus one."
By the time the wedding came around, there was no doubt that both Elisabeth and her young swain were well aware of the connotations of "companion", but it showed only as a slight amusement in their dealings with Hedvig and Rose. The bride's mother was considerably less amused, though most of her energy was spent trying to pretend like her daughter's waistline hadn't swelled considerably.
"Such a nice girl," Rose declared at the reception.
"Isn't she just?" Hedvig asked. They were sitting opposite each other, close enough that she could rub a leg against Rose's, something that would have worked much better if they'd still been young and wearing the kind of shoes that could easily be kicked off. Still, it was the thought that counted, and she got a sly smile in reply.
They had a marvellous time. One of their last marvellous times, before Rose took ill.
The next few years were a dark blur, as Rose's illness took more and more of her away, until the last of her slipped away. Agnes passed a year later. Even though Hedvig had barely spoken to her for years, she cried for her sister, for the childhood they'd had together.
And right after that...
There wasn't any sense to it.
"He's saving me for last," Hedvig told the doll bitterly, sitting in her studio with a cooling cup of tea. "That bastard up there is saving me for last, and I can't tell why. I'm done in this world. I'm so done, and yet I can't bring myself to check out, in case there's something I'm missing. But what? What's left?"
The doll watched her intently. Listening, waiting – but there was no clue in her face what she was waiting for.
Her hands grew shaky, her back creaked and bent, her eyesight dimmed. There was little to do, now that she couldn't paint and travelling took every ounce of her energy. She bought a tape recorder and took to borrowing audiobooks, as a bit of a change to the hours listening to music. At least she was still self-sufficient and didn't have to move into any sort of home, crowded with nosy old ladies whose wrinkly countenances would remind her of her own.
Dim though her eyes might be, they weren't so dim that she couldn't tell the difference in the doll's expression. Enthusiastic and demanding all at once, little hand pointing towards the desk.
"What now?" Hedvig asked. She walked up to the desk. Apart from the usual items, there were only a couple of letters, the top one having Vera's meticulous writing. She took the letter opener and the magnifying glass from the drawer, and proceeded to read the letter. Much of the usual meaningless phrases, and some news about her granddaughter where some actual feeling seeped through. "We hope to see her more, now that she and the Sjöborgs have recently moved to..."
Hedvig looked up at the doll.
"And what am I supposed to do with that?" she asked.
Something fell to the floor behind her. She turned around and found that an empty shoebox had fallen from the cupboard. No, not quite empty. There was tissue paper, enough to wrap something fragile.
Hedvig's head whipped around. The doll was leaning forward now, arms stretched out, begging to be taken down.
"You want to...?" She'd be all alone, then. Bizarre thought; as if the presence of a mere doll could make such a difference. Yet it could. It did. "Why now?" she asked, stalling. "Why not ten years ago, when it might have mattered? She's too old for you now."
The doll's mouth thinned.
"All right," Hedvig said. She lifted the doll down and placed it carefully in the shoebox. Seeing it there, face open and trusting, she hesitated. "Is this it? Is this what I've been waiting for?"
Her eyes got runny easily, these days. A teardrop fell onto the doll's face, enhancing the sadness in her eyes – but there was hope, too. More than hope, a promise.
"Very well," Hedvig whispered, trying to smile. She wiped the teardrop away, and closed the lid. "Let's do this."