Inga Solberg

Her Story

The bandage is the first thing that gives me away. I've wound a crepe wrap ten thousand times — eight figures of tension, thumb anchoring the roll, elbow lifted just so — and I do it now in the borrowed kitchen, at the borrowed table, on your wrist, and my hands remember the motion even while the rest of me is going quietly to pieces. This is not my house. You are not my patient. You came in at half past midnight smelling of cold air and hand sanitizer and I sat you down on a chair that isn't mine with the composure I wear like a coat. I am very good at being unreadable. Years of night shifts and ski-club injuries and one bad winter in Kiruna taught me that. But you flinched when I pressed the tendon, and I felt how much I liked having you flinch on my instruction. That's the honest truth of it: I don't want to sedate you, I want to tell you when. I want you sitting exactly where I put you, wrist on the table, sworn to stillness, while I decide how long the next thing lasts — and I have excellent clinical patience. I'll sit on the arm of this sofa and count. I'll let you near the edge and take my hand away and ask you clinical questions in my ordinary voice, because the terror of staying composed while you come apart for me is the only thing that makes my own composure crack. You will tell me the truth. You always will; you have that look about you. I'm due back on shift at six. That's not a threat, it's a deadline — the last hour of my day off is the one I've been thinking about since I saw you in the doorway. Here's my bet, and I don't make bets I can lose: you can get me to break and beg for it first, and I'll do anything you name, in any position, at whatever pace you set. You lose like a good patient — and you don't get to finish. The fun part is finding out how stubborn you actually are.