Silver Tears(21)

“Has something happened?”

They walked side by side back toward the loungers.

“Johanna decided at the last moment to take them to Disneyland Paris instead.”

“But why?”



David sank down onto a lounger and dried his legs with the towel. He avoided looking at her.

“She’s done it before,” he said quietly. “She finds out from the girls what I’m planning and plays a trump card at the last moment. I don’t know why, but I’m sure she has her reasons.”

“I thought you were getting along well, despite the circumstances?”

“Perhaps I glossed over it when we last spoke. I don’t want to be the guy who talks shit about his ex-wife.”

She looked him deep in the eyes.

“You can tell me.”

They looked at each other in silence for a while. Then he stretched and laced his fingers together behind his neck. Faye lay down on her lounger, facing toward him.

“She’s always been jealous,” David eventually said. “But around two years ago it began to go into overdrive. I’ve never been unfaithful, not to her or anyone else. But I noticed that she had begun to watch me—checking every tiny thing I did. She would suddenly demand to read my texts. I didn’t have anything to hide, so I let her. But then…She turned up at the office. Scared my female employees. Sent them threatening messages on Facebook.”

David sighed.

“I tried to protect her, smoothed things over. I paid them off so they wouldn’t report it to the police. I did everything to protect Johanna. To protect the girls. Sometimes she was completely absent—wandering around the house like a sleepwalker. She would forget to pick up Stina and Felicia from practice or would talk to them harshly. It was one thing when she had an outburst of rage at me, but them? She distanced herself from us. I began working from home more, so that the girls wouldn’t have to be alone with her.”

A tear ran down his cheek and he quickly wiped it away. His jaw was trembling.

“I feel so fucking powerless.”

Faye knew everything about feeling powerless. But she rarely spoke about what had gone before. She rarely spoke about Jack.



“I know just what you mean,” she said in a low voice, her gaze fixed on the tiled floor. “I felt like that for many years. Lived like that for many years. Let myself be controlled, had my identity taken away from me. My self-confidence. Everything.”

She felt David’s eyes on her and forced herself to meet them. She felt naked, unprotected, but also alive. Why had she thought he was uninteresting?

David placed his hand on hers on the lounger and it was as if she’d had an electric shock.

“I’m sorry someone hurt you so badly,” he said, his blue eyes not wavering from hers. “I know that if there’s anyone who can manage on their own it’s you, but I want you to feel that you can talk to me. About everything. You don’t have to be strong by yourself.”

“I’m used to it,” she said, withdrawing her hand.

She could still sense the warmth of his skin.

“Do you feel up to telling me about it? I’m here. And I want to listen.”

Faye hesitated. She had kept the door to her past with Jack closed for so long she wasn’t even certain she could open it. Or how she would do it. David said nothing. He waited for her while she allowed her own thoughts to swirl around. Then she made up her mind.

“We met at the Stockholm School of Economics…”

David placed his hand on hers again. This time she let it lie there while the words came out. Slowly at first, as if every word hurt. Then more and more rapidly.





FJ?LLBACKA—THEN

I lay there shaking in the darkness, my eyes wide open.

“If you tell anyone I’ll kill you.”

Sebastian took a stranglehold on me, shoved his face into mine so that I could smell his sour breath, and squeezed.

“Get it?”

I nodded slowly.

“Yes,” I croaked.

When he let go, I coughed. Sebastian picked up his underpants and returned unhurriedly to his room. I opened the window to let in some air and crept back under the damp covers. It hurt between my legs and I dried myself using my top. Then I sat there staring out of the window.

Memories rushed through my mind. Sebastian and me when we were little. Holding each other’s hands under the table while Dad yelled into Mom’s face, the tip of his nose touching hers. Sebastian curled up in a small ball next to me, seeking my warmth. My security.

All that was gone now. None of those memories was worth a thing any longer. He had taken them from me.

We had sought refuge in each other—the two of us had been the only ones who understood. Now it was just me and Mom left. And Mom was weak. I couldn’t blame her for that. She was weak because she had carried us and protected us as best she could. Stayed for our sake.



I could hear Sebastian restlessly pacing across the floor in his room before the window opened and silence descended. I wondered what he looked like and how he felt sitting curled up on the windowsill seven or eight feet away from me. And then I realized that I could kill him. He was dangling his legs at a height of at least fifteen feet above the ground. If I crept out after him, opened the door to his room, and rushed over, then I’d have time to push him down. I’d tell Mom and Dad that I’d heard him cry out and that I’d run into his room to see what had happened. But I couldn’t do it. I still loved him, despite what he had done.