Whenever I mentioned to people that I was going to be traveling to Finland, every single one of them, without exception, made some kind of nudge-wink reference to the Finns’ reputation for drinking, whether it be a subtle dig along the lines of “They like a drink, the Finns,” to warnings like “You’re going to be there on a Saturday night? It’s Arma

Each night, after the children were in bed, I drank a water glass full of bourbon, and this too pleased me. These were my acts of desperation: lying in bed, drinking lonely bourbon, picking at my seedy fruit.