I Can Be That Woman

Chapter 1

Summer 1992

Agnetha Fältskog was at home gardening. It was something she started doing not too long ago as a hobby in order to keep her sane these days. In fact, it was the only thing keeping her sane. For the last 18 months, Agnetha has been married to a monster. A monster who has caused so much damage during those painful 18 months. Tomas Sonnenfeld, Agnetha's husband, worked as a surgeon at the nearby hospital but he was also a raging alcoholic with what has to be the most brutal temper anyone has ever witnessed. And the scariest part was that there was more to Tomas than just that. He was the complete opposite of what he was when he and Agnetha first met.

Agnetha and Tomas first met at a party that was hosted by a mutual friend of theirs. Their mutual friend who happened to play matchmaker during that party. This party took place a few weeks or so before Agnetha's 40th birthday two years before. When they first met, Agnetha and Tomas were both all over each other. Talking and getting to know each other and constantly flirting. All those things that couples do when sparks fly and they start going out together after falling in love. Not to mention the fact that he was a gentleman and was someone who was loving and honest. Those things made Agnetha fall for Tomas even more in addition to his somewhat good looks but to Agnetha, good looks didn't really matter to her anymore. She just wanted a man who was caring, loyal, and honest and just overall someone who treated her nicely and that was who Tomas was at the time.

Not too long afterwards, maybe about three months later, Agnetha and Tomas were engaged much to everyone's surprise. Agnetha and Tomas's relationship was proving to be one of those whirlwind romances in which the couple gets engaged only weeks after their first date and get married not too long after that. And that's exactly what it was. And then they got married. Ten days before Christmas 1990, Agnetha and Tomas officially tied the knot and things turned upside down very quickly since then and it seemed like there was no turning back.

It started off with Tomas forbidding Agnetha to see and talk to Linda and Christian, her two children from her first marriage to Björn Ulvaeus. Agnetha and Björn were one half of the legendary supergroup, ABBA, along with their friends Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. Agnetha, Björn, Benny, and Frida were two happy couples who enjoyed making music together until things changed and soon enough, the two couples divorced. Agnetha and Björn's love for one another was immense and they really were a golden couple. A couple that nobody expected to see getting divorced. But it happened.

It all started going downhill after the birth of Christian, when Agnetha battled postpartum depression all on her own. She felt depressed and lost in her world and she was blaming herself for everything wrong that was going on in her marriage and just in her life in general, though it wasn't her fault. She loved being a singer but the fame was too much for her and she was exhausted from constantly touring and wanted to stay home and watch her children grow up. Agnetha felt that she failed Linda by missing out on much of her early childhood years due to the constant touring and that Linda was growing up without a mother and a father and often blamed herself for the wasted years. This made her more determined to not miss out on Christian's early childhood years as well but it proved to be without a fight.

Björn, as much as he loved his children and his wife, had other plans in regards to his life at the time. It was 1978 and ABBA were at their prime. They were truly on a high having released five albums together as a group and were starting to record a sixth one, followed by a seventh one, and ultimately an eighth one as well. ABBA had international fame and had conquered all four corners of the planet from England to Germany to Japan to as far away as Australia. Well, they hadn't conquered all four corners of the planet entirely. There was one more corner left to go and that was the US. ABBA already had lots of American fans, but the American music business was truly hard to break and while they've had several successes in the US with Waterloo, Dancing Queen, and Take a Chance on Me, what the group needed was a tour and with that, they would have officially conquered all four corners of the planet.