Stockholm, Sweden (1991–2013)

Stockholm is the sisters’ primary home from childhood through early adulthood, spanning the 1990s and 2000s as their lives split into romance, work, and self-invention. The city’s neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and social scenes create the constant feeling of being observed, judged, and categorized, which reinforces the sisters’ reliance on secrecy and private codes. Stockholm also functions as the emotional baseline for the story, since departures to other places are measured against what the sisters cannot escape in the city: old rumors, family expectations, and the pull of one another.

The Mikkola Family Apartments (Stockholm, 1990s–early 2000s)

The sisters’ successive apartments in Stockholm are the domestic spaces where Selima’s rules, disappearances, and rituals take shape during the sisters’ childhood and adolescence. These homes are defined by instability and adaptation, because moves, temporary arrangements, and the threat of outside scrutiny force the sisters to treat privacy...