Silver Tears(7)

I had a tummy ache while waiting for it all to explode. Like always.

Dad had spent the hours after I’d come home from school in his shabby armchair in front of the TV, which wasn’t even switched on, while his bottle of cheap Explorer vodka emptied faster and faster. Mom knew it too. I could see it in her anxious, flapping movements. She took extra care with the food and cooked a dinner that included all of Dad’s favorites. Big pork chops with baked brown beans, fried onions, and potatoes. Apple pie with thick whipped cream.

None of the rest of us liked pork and beans, but we knew that we should still eat all of it. At the same time we knew that none of it would help. The critical juncture had already passed—like a seesaw that had tipped past the point where down was the only possible direction.

No one said anything. We laid the table in silence, picked the good crockery, set out napkins, which I folded into fans. Dad never cared about things like that, but we always let Mom think that it might help. That he would see how nice we had made things, how tasty the food that Mom had cooked was. That something inside him would be moved by the consideration and he would let it be. Just let it be. Let the seesaw tip back to its original position. But there was nothing within him that could be moved or touched. It was empty in there. Desolate.



“G?sta, dinner’s ready.”

Mom’s voice trembled slightly as she tried to sound cheerful. She carefully touched her hair. She had made herself nice. Put up her hair, put on a blouse and a stylish pair of trousers.

Before long we were all in our seats. Mom served up exactly the amount of pork onto Dad’s plate that she knew he would want. In precise proportion to the beans, potatoes, and fried onions. Dad looked at the plate. For a long time. For far too long. All three of us knew what that meant. Me, Mom, Sebastian.

We were frozen mid-movement, frozen in a prison that Sebastian and I had lived in since birth and Mom had been in since she had met Dad. We were frozen to the spot while Dad stared at his plate. Then, slowly—as if in slow motion—he took a full fist of food. Pork, beans, onions, and potatoes. He managed to get a little bit of everything from the plate in his huge fist. With his other fist, he firmly grabbed Mom’s hair—the do that she had spent ages struggling to put in place. Then he pushed the food into Mom’s face. Slowly, carefully, he mashed it around her face.

Mom did nothing. She knew that her only option was to do nothing. But both Sebastian and I knew that tonight it wouldn’t help. His gaze was too cold. The bottle was too empty. The grip on her hair was too firm. We didn’t dare look at her. Or each other.

Dad stood up slowly. He yanked Mom out of her chair. I saw the residue of pork and baked brown beans on her face. The scent of sugar and cinnamon in the apple pie was wafting from the oven. Dad’s favorite. I went through all the possibilities of what Dad might do now. All the body parts he could choose to target. Perhaps he would return to a well-frequented area. The arms had been broken in five places. The legs in two. He had cracked ribs on three occasions. The nose once.



Dad was apparently feeling creative on this particular night. With all the might of his muscular arm, he pushed Mom’s soiled face down toward the table fast and hard. Her teeth struck the edge of it. We heard the sound of them shattering. The shard of a tooth almost got me in the eye, but my eyebrow caught it and it tumbled down onto my plate. Right into the baked brown beans.

Sebastian jerked back but he still didn’t look up.

“Eat,” Dad hissed.

We ate. I used my fork to push Mom’s tooth aside.





“Coffee?”

“No thanks. But we’d love some more bubbly and red wine.”

“I’ll have a coffee, please.”

Kerstin accepted a paper cup filled with coffee from the flight attendant, who then went to fetch Faye’s order.

“Who do you think it could be?” Faye said in a troubled voice.

“It’s impossible to tell. And it would be wasted effort to try and guess before we know more.”

“I don’t understand how I could have been so na?ve. I never gave a moment’s thought to the idea that the other co-owners would be able to sell their shares without talking to me first.”

Kerstin raised her eyebrows.

“I warned you it was a risk selling such a big stake in the company.”

“Yes, I know,” Faye said in frustration, craning her neck to look for the flight attendant bringing her bottles. “It felt like the best solution at the time. In the middle of the whole thing with Jack and Julienne, the trial, the media. And Chris dying. I secured the capital and I believed I’d be able to retain control as chairman.”

“You should never believe in business,” said Kerstin.

“I know you love saying I told you so, but can you drop it for a bit? We’re talking about something else at the moment. I’m stressed out about being stuck on a plane unable to do anything or find out any more until we’re in the meetings tomorrow. It’s bad enough that I’ve been thinking about this all day.”



The flight attendant returned with a miniature bottle of sparkling wine and a miniature bottle of red wine. Faye picked up the two empty bottles on the table in front of her and passed them over in exchange. She opened the bubbly first and placed the chilled bottle of red between her thighs to warm it up.