The Guilt of Love

Guilt is good, I think. Feeling guilty means you have empathy and are not a careless monster. Bad people don’t feel guilty. On the other hand, would a good person have something to feel guilty about? I suppose it’s not black and white but it feels like an unnecessary burden—a weight hung around the necks of good people for irrational reasons.

Will, my boyfriend sitting next to me, driving, is the cause of my guilt. We’re on our way to his deceased grandparent’s house to help his family clean out the place. I’ve decided to break up with Will. Actually, I decided about a month ago. As I was about to end it, Will’s grandmother died of a stroke. Not even two weeks later, his grandfather passed as well.

It was only days after the funeral that Will’s grandfather’s heart stopped. A tragic, but an undeniably romantic story. After nearly sixty years of marriage, they couldn’t live apart for more than a couple of days. Heartbreaking and beautiful.

I’d only met Will’s grandparents once, at Thanksgiving last year. We’d been dating for about five months at that point and it was my first time meeting his family. Now, we’ve been dating for sixteen months and this will likely be the last time I see Will’s family.

It’s October and the holidays are coming up again. I can’t do it. I can’t sit down at Thanksgiving and give vague and noncommittal answers to questions about our future. I can’t have Will and his family buy me presents and pretend like everything is okay. I can’t kiss him at midnight on New Year’s Eve with this truth stuck in my head. It wouldn’t be fair to Will anyway. No, better a clean break. The sooner the better. This week. The guilt will only grow the longer I put it off.

Breaking up is the rational choice. Still, I feel guilty. It pangs my chest and makes my eyes dart away from his. It sneaks up on me in the quiet moments I’m with him.

I would’ve dumped you by now if it weren’t for your grandmother’s death. I’m calculating the right amount of time after your grandfather’s funeral to officially break things off.

This guilt—this truth only I know—hovers over me and never leaves.

Should I feel guilty? Relationships end, people grow apart, it’s entirely understandable and expected. We’re only a couple of years out of college and both have time for new and better relationships. I don’t know if Will loves me. That’s not true, I’m positive he does. He says it all the time. A small part of me hopes he only says it because that’s what’s expected of a relationship that’s lasted for a year—love. That’s why I say I love him when I don’t. Maybe the first time I said it I meant it but not anymore. No, that’s not true either. If I meant it the first time I’d mean it now.

It was about two months ago when I realized I didn’t love Will. I only really liked him. If I didn’t love him then staying in the relationship wouldn’t be fair to either of us. I repeated this to myself to build the courage to dump him. I’d never dumped anyone before. Will deserves a girlfriend who loves him but that can’t be me. So, really, I’m doing Will a favor.

Will is a good boyfriend. He’s one of my best friends and a great roommate. But none of those things are love. I love Will’s family, but not in that way. They were extremely welcoming and nice to me—especially his mom Maddy and older sister Breanna.

Breanna and I text all the time and even hangout without Will occasionally. She’s introduced me to her friends and I’ve done the same for her. I think of Maddy as a friend, too. We talk and text and joke around on Instagram all the time. I hope some part of those friendships will survive the breakup, but I know that’s more reckless hope. What mother and sister would stay friends with an ex-girlfriend?

I’ll miss Will’s family. They’re a close family, which is very unlike mine. I barely speak to my brother and see my parents once a year during the holidays. Will’s family—the Greene’s—made me one of their own almost immediately. It was nice, being part of one of those close families.

“You okay?” Will says in his baritone voice. It’s always funny to me that Will is a tall, lanky kid with a boyish face and only the wisps of facial hair yet he has the voice of a mountain man. I lift my head off the cold passenger-seat window. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You just haven’t said anything in a while.”

“Sorry, tired. Didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“It’s okay. Thanks again for helping with this. My parents will appreciate the extra set of hands.”

“It’s no problem. Anything I can do to help.”

“They’ve been putting this off. Going inside that house and sorting through sixty years of crap. They’ll love seeing you, though, they always do. It’s gotten to the point if I visit them without you they’re disappointed.”

“What’s your grandparent’s house like?”

“It’s an old house. My mom would talk about how impressive it was when she was little but they didn’t take very good care of it as they got older. The second floor hasn’t been touched in years—my mom and her sister’s old rooms look practically the same since they moved out. That’s mostly what we’ll be doing. Clearing out the rooms.”

“What will you do with all the stuff?”

“I don’t know. Probably throw out most of it. Maybe we’ll find a few things worth a buck on eBay.”

I do my best to attempt a smile. The icy windshield feels good against my forehead, so I rest it there. Outside, the wind sweeps brown, yellow, and red leaves onto the road and muscular gray clouds cover the skies overhead.

As we pull in, I understand Will’s description of the house. It’s not a mansion, but it isn’t small either. It’s an old house that seems dignified. Its brick is faded and its white paint is chipped, but it’s easy to see it had once been elegant and one of the most expensive houses on the block. Will’s dad sees us and puts down the box he’s carrying.

“Ha-ho! There they are!” he yells, which is his standard greeting. He is an adorable old man with his white beard, red cheeks, and portly belly. His whiskers brush my cheek as he hugs me. “Thanks for coming, darling.”

“Happy to, Vincent.”

His heavy hand slaps Will on the shoulder. “Head on inside, Madeline’s got jobs for each of you in there, she’s already bossing your sister and brother around.”

Vincent always calls Will’s mom Madeline even though everyone else calls her Maddy, which is very cute to me.

We step through the open front door and into a small entryway with a hall leading to the living room. Maddy apparently hears us come in because as soon as we step inside she pops her head in from around the corner.

“Hey guys!” she says with a smile. She hugs and thanks me like Vincent did and the rush of guilt turns my stomach. I say hello to Breanna who is packing boxes in the kitchen and Drew, Will’s brother, who walks past with a box full of tools from the garage.

“Will, take those boxes and start in the basement, would you?”

Will does as he’s asked and I’m left waiting for instructions from Maddy.

“Nicole, sweetheart, could you do me a favor?” She insists on calling me Nicole even though I’ve repeatedly told her Nicky is fine. The family seems to have a connection with formality and love I don’t understand but find charming.

“Of course, I’m here to help.”

“Could you take these boxes upstairs to the second bedroom on the right and start boxing up the books in there? There’s a wall of shelves and books. Don’t worry about bringing them down because they’ll be heavy but just start boxing them up.”

“No problem, Maddy.”

“Thank you, sweetie.” She brings her right hand to my cheek. Her right hand is incomplete, with a nub where her ring finger should be. The story goes it’s the product of a cooking accident from years ago. 

“You’ve been such a help for us and Will these past few weeks. Know that we really appreciate it,” she says, grazing my cheek with her thumb.

Guilt again. I shove a smile to my face and grab the boxes and head down the hallway towards the staircase. I pass Drew on the way and as I ascend the steps I can hear Maddy mumbling to Drew.

“Why can’t you find a nice girl like Nicole?”

“Mom, don’t start,” he groans.

When I reach the top of the stairs I can see for myself that Will was right about it never being used. Dust clings to the banister and half of the lights are burned out. There’s a noticeable draft and the wooden floor moans underneath my feet.

I enter the second bedroom on the right and find a modest bedroom with floor-to-ceiling windows on the far side that look out over the backyard. I hadn’t noticed that the house was on a small hill with a green lawn encompassed by tall trees. The lawn is covered in colorful dead leaves that casually flutter in the autumn breeze. 

There’s little else in the bedroom except for a twin bed and a wall of bookshelves filled with dusty volumes of text. They all look like thick, important, leather-bound books that are more than twice my age. I carefully start taking them off the shelves and placing them in the cardboard boxes with only cursory glances at their titles.

Most seem to be history books—specifically European history with a focus on the Scandinavian region. Some look to be about the Vikings and their Norse gods, while some are more modern and about wars and politics.

One catches my eye though. It’s wrapped in fine brown leather and the title is engraved in a different language, perhaps Norwegian. When I open it, the entire book is in the language but it still pulls me in. Rune drawings frame the words typed in a Norse-like font. There are plenty of illustrations, one almost every other page. 

The pictures are gorgeous and graphic. They’re full of animals and mythical creatures—wolves, ravens, warrior-men, elves, dwarves, and dozens of others I have no name for. They’re all twisted and intertwined with one another in war or in love.

“How’s it going in here?” 

Maddy’s sudden voice startles me so much I nearly drop the book. I realize I’d been looking at the book for longer than I thought. She chuckles as she enters the room, a steaming mug in her hand. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. It gets chilly up here so I thought you might want some hot tea,” she says, handing me the hug. “What’re you looking at?”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been snooping,” I say, slightly embarrassed.

“Nonsense, it’s just a book. Which one is that?”

“I don’t know, it’s in a different language. I was just looking at the pictures.”

I hand the book to Maddy and she fans through its pages. A grin spreads over her face.

“Oh, I know this one. This was one of my father’s grandfather’s books. He brought it with him when they came to America from Norway. It’s all about the Norse gods and the Vikings and all the stories about them, really fascinating. I loved looking at the pictures when I was a kid.”

I pick up the tea and sip it slowly, it’s hot contents warm my belly. Cold wind whistles by the windows.

“The art inside is beautiful. This must be really old if it was your great-grandfather’s.”

“Honey, this was old when my grandfather’s father had it. It’s been passed down the family for generations.

“That’s incredible. Something you want to keep, right?”

Maddy smiles and briskly turns through the pages. “My grandfather could still speak and read Norweigian and he would read us parts of this book. There are some really scary stories here.”

“Scary stories?”

“Well, to a child. But, to be fair, the Vikings weren’t exactly Quakers. There’d be some really graphic tales here about warriors and gods. There’d even be some rituals and ceremony instructions that would creep us out.”

“Rituals?”

“Oh, you know, how they’d properly sacrifice a goat or an ox or whatever to appease one of the gods. They were a warrior-culture, you know? Everything was about spilling blood.”

“That’s so cool that you have this history. I didn’t even know your family was Norwegian.”

“Well, only my side is. And, my great-grandfather changed his last name when he came to America from Jacobsen to Jacobs. I’m not sure why, though. Maybe to fit in a little better.”

I sip the tea again and it’s strong and filling.

“Good in here?” Will’s strong voice sounds from the entryway. 

He sounds like a Viking descendent, I muse within my head.

“Yeah, honey,” Maddy answers. “We were just looking over some of these old books. This one was your great-great-grandfather’s. Isn’t that something? He brought it on his trip from Norway.”

“Huh.” Will looks over Maddy’s shoulder at the book. He looks cold and a little pale, with his hands stuffed into the pocket of his hoodie. He didn’t seem like that when we came here. I must’ve been too caught up in my own head to notice.

“Actually, I know there’s another one like this—here it is!”

Maddy puts the book down and grabs another ancient text from the shelf. 

“You’ll love this one, Nicole, it’s all about the god Freya, who was Odin’s wife and goddess of love and fertility. But, she was also a warrior goddess. She was always my favorite as a kid.”

I giggle as I sip my tea and look over Maddy’s shoulder as she opens it. 

“There are all kinds of stories and myths about her here. There are even some rituals they would perform to ask for Freya’s blessings.”

“What would they ask of her?”

“Oh, all kinds of things. Some were ceremonies to help get pregnant or to bless a marriage. Some were even rituals to get someone to fall in love with you.”

“Really? A love spell? What would they do?”

Maddy places the book down and points at an illustration. “Like, this one for instance.”

The picture shows a plain woman kneeling before a levitating goddess in a forest. The normal woman holds her hand up to Freya, with blood coming from it.

“One would make a small sacrifice to Freya and then have the other person—the one you wanted to fall in love with—ingest something of theirs, like, say, blood. They make a concoction with their blood, the other person drinks it, they say a few words, yadda yadda yadda, and poof, the person loves you for life.”

“Crazy,” I say. “Drinking blood. What would the sacrifice be?”

“Nothing big, but something to show your devotion. Usually, a finger does the trick.”

I stop sipping my tea. I look at Will, who is staring at the book, avoiding my gaze. My eyes press to the book, where Maddy’s hand lays on the page, her nub of a ring finger rubbing the text.

I clear my throat and put down my tea.

“Strange.”

“Not so strange, sweetie,” Maddy tells me. Her voice is flat and unnerving. “We’d all make sacrifices to be loved by the one you love most in this world, wouldn’t we?”

 I don’t say anything.

“I know I would.”

She straightens her posture and looks at me as I step back. Her eyes penetrate me. I look to Will, but his eyes are glued to the floor out of shame or fear.

“Wouldn’t you, Will?”

Will slowly nods his head and takes his hand out of his pocket. A heavy bandage is wrapped around his hand, specifically the ring finger, which is noticeably shorter.

“Jesus, what did you do?” I yell as I feel my heart punch against my chest.

“I know you were planning on dumping him,” Maddy accuses me. “I could see it in your eyes at the funeral. I know that look because my husband once had that look. But, then, I made a small sacrifice and made him some tea. Now, look how happy we are.”

She steps toward me. I step back. I can feel the freezing window pressing against my shoulders and head. My focus begins to blur and my head starts to vibrate.

“Maddy, you’re scaring me.”

“It’s alright, sweetie. It’ll all be over soon, and then you’ll be in love for the rest of your life. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? Don't you want to be in love for the rest of your life?”

My throat feels raw and harsh. I try to rub the blur out of my eyes but it only makes it worse.

“You drugged me,” I mumble, the words slurring out of my mouth. “You’re insane. Will, please.”

“Deep breathes sweetheart.”

I fall to the floor. My fingers feel numb and my tongue sizzles in my mouth. It feels like death is slowly gripping me and squeezing myself out of my own body.

The last thing I hear is their chanting. It starts slow and melodic but then grows louder and I think other voices join in. They’re harsh, cruel chants in a foreign language with wicked tongues and vengeful rasps. They chant and chant as I writhe on the floor and my very eyes feel like they’re about to scream out of my skull and my eardrums will explode.

Then, darkness came.

When I awake, I am in love.