Never Coming Back by Hans Koppel

Author:Hans Koppel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books

Sanna was buttering a piece of bread. She did this with such care that Mike and Ylva had started to put two knives in the butter before they put it on the table, one for them and one for Sanna.

Each slice was a work of art for Sanna that was not finished until the bread was covered in an even, smooth layer of butter. Without any bumps or marks.

‘So, do you think it was a good party?’ Mike asked.

Sanna nodded without lifting her eyes from the bread.

This fixation with spreading the butter was a running joke for Mike and Ylva. They wondered what it might indicate, speculated where she might have got it from and what other things in life would be given such time and care.

At times, Ylva worried that Sanna might have some kind of disorder, a touch of autism or some condition known by an acronym. But that wasn’t the case. Mike guessed that spreading butter was a form of meditation. And there was absolutely no point in analysing to death something that worked. A lot simpler to put an extra knife in the butter. Live and let live. With all our individual peculiarities.

‘What was most fun?’ Mike wondered.

‘Mummy’s not coming home, is she?’

The question was like a slap in the face. Mike had thought a great deal about his mother’s misguided decision, keeping his father’s suicide secret from him and talking evasively of a car crash. He recalled how the feeling of hopelessness and guilt had floored him when the truth finally came out. Mike had decided not to embellish or protect his daughter from the truth.

‘No,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t look like it.’

Sanna looked at him.

‘Is she dead?’

‘I don’t know,’ Mike replied. ‘I don’t know anything.’

Sanna put the knife back in the butter and started to eat. She glanced quickly down at the table before looking out the window to the world beyond: light green leaves, flowering lilac, it would be the summer holidays soon.

Mike’s eyes filled and his nose got blocked, forcing him to breathe through his mouth.

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