In the essay “It Will Look like a Sunset,” Kelly Sundberg goes between two characterizations of her ex-husband: One as the kindest, gentlest partner she had ever had, and one as her abuser of eight years. While the two seem diametrically opposed on the surface, Sundberg’s essay, and others like it, reveal that this is not the case.
One of the most chilling things about this essay is Sundberg’s choice of image placement. Immediately following a description of Caleb’s actions leaving her with a swollen, bloodied foot which she couldn’t walk on, she talked about the first time she stayed in his log cabin home, and how the moon that night turned the fresh snow into a blanket of stars. Even the title plays into this, with us as readers picturing what we assume must be a beautiful thing happening to this woman, which is later revealed to be a description of the bruise her husband gave her.
Sundberg discusses going “into a cave” when Caleb would hit her (or break things on her, or rip out chunks of her hair, or shout at her that she was a “fucking cunt”). I believe writing about her husband in these ways, with the things that make her love him being so separate from the things he did to her, are in fact the only way she could talk about it at all: as if the man she loves and the man she fears are two separate people.