Chapter 15: The Sanctuary of Dyrhólaey

Chapter 15: The Sanctuary of Dyrhólaey

I followed the directions of the old man on the pier and walked steadily westwards, along the coast until I entered the path that leads to the cliffs of Dyrhólaey. It is a mystical place, a piece of land suspended between the gray sky and the beaches of infinite black sand. The wind up there blew with brutal force, but the atmosphere conveyed a peace so profound, so superhuman, that the noise of the world seemed to be completely extinguished. It felt like the end of the Earth. Or perhaps, as the beginning of something new.

I sat down on a rock covered with arctic moss, facing the sea abyss. I opened the zipper of my backpack and reached into the smaller pocket. My fingers felt the cold metal. I pulled out my wedding ring. I stared at her in the pale Norwegian light; inside was still Anthony's name perfectly clear, engraved next to the date of a promise he mercilessly broke.

With trembling hands but with a determined heart, I dug a small hole in the damp earth of the cliff. I dropped the ring. There, in that sanctuary of stone and wind, I definitively closed that chapter of my life. Now I would have to live for myself. I cried. I wept for the last time over my pain, my desolation, the betrayal, and the fifteen years of invisible sacrifices. In that piece of Norwegian soil I left the old Astrid buried: the submissive woman, the one who was not enough, the one who depended on the gaze of another to exist.

As I was about to get up, wiping my tears with the back of my jacket, I heard heavy footsteps on the gravel behind me. The fright made me try to sit up in a hurry, but a large, firm hand landed on my shoulder, stopping me with astonishing softness.

I didn't move. I looked at the ground. Right next to the hole where I had just buried my wedding ring, male fingers deposited a gold chain with a charm, a jewel that carried the weight of its own history. We didn't need words. He had also gone to that same cliff to close his own chapter. We stayed like this for a long time, in absolute silence, kneeling before our respective farewell altars, both immersed in our pain, in our memories and in the lives that had been taken from us.