The Christmas Hypothesis by Anna Blix

Author:Anna Blix [Blix, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rivey Field Press
Published: 2019-10-24T16:00:00+00:00

24

Niklas hardly spoke for the remainder of his visit to Tenerife. Not to Teijo or Terttu, and not to his parents. He stayed in the basement for most of the time. Reading, sleeping, thinking. Venturing upstairs at mealtimes only. He answered questions politely when addressed, then he returned to his room in the dark basement. The others didn’t seem to miss him too much. He could hear them laugh and move about upstairs.

Back in Helsinki, he put all of his efforts into his studies. He spent long, lonely evenings buried in course books. The phone calls from Mum became sparser and hollower. Eventually, Niklas mustered the courage to ask about what Teijo had said that afternoon by the swimming pool.

“What do you mean?” Mum said.

Niklas drew a deep breath. “He said you had told him something about me. That I was different, somehow.”

There was a long pause before his mother spoke. “Did he?” Another long pause. “Well… You know what it was like when you were little.”

“No. I don’t. I can’t remember. You have to tell me.”

The phone line crackled. Niklas pressed his ear to the receiver.

“It wasn’t always easy. You never made any friends, Niklas. Always stuck to yourself. And the tantrums, of course.”

“Tantrums?” Niklas didn’t remember any tantrums.

“You screamed for hours. Sometimes we didn’t even know why you were screaming. Then you shut down. You kind of glazed over. We couldn’t get through to you. Don’t you remember?”

“No.” He tried to think back. Maybe he had screamed. Yes. He remembered lying on his bed, screaming into his pillow. Why had he screamed? Was it just the one time, or had it happened more often?

“Well, it got better. With time — that’s the main thing. And you’re doing okay now, aren’t you?”

Was he doing okay? He didn’t know. If Mum said so, he probably was. “But… Did you try to get me some help?”

“What do you mean, ‘help’?”

Niklas twisted the telephone cord between his fingers. “I don’t know. Take me to a doctor?”

“A doctor? No. I mean, you weren’t like that. There was nothing wrong with you. As such. Apart from being really, really hard work.”

“And different?”

“Yes! Different. You were different. There’s nothing wrong with being different. Nothing a doctor can do about it.” Her laugh echoed down the line.

Niklas gazed out the window at the snow covering the drive and the Volkswagen. He saw his own footprints going back and forth between the porch and the road. Back and forth. Was he so different that she couldn’t bear the thought of living in the same country? No, it wasn’t like that at all. Niklas must have completely misunderstood. Besides, didn’t everyone struggle sometimes? And it was a long time ago. He’d probably not been so different after all.

But he was. Niklas knew he was.

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