Us Against You by Fredrik Backman

Author:Fredrik Backman
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Atria Books

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When Kira picks Maya up, her daughter pretends that everything is fine again. She’s starting to get good at that. She says she twisted her ankle while she and Ana were jogging, and Kira is happy. Happy! Because a twisted ankle is so normal. It’s part of normal sixteen-year-old life.

“Do you feel like doing something? We could drive to Hed and go for a coffee,” Kira suggests, with all the training in rejection of a mother of teenagers, so her heart skips a beat when her daughter unexpectedly replies, “Okay.”

They drink coffee. They talk. They even laugh, as if this were all normal, and of course Kira is the one who spoils it. Because she can’t help asking “How are you getting on with . . . counseling? Or with the psychologist? I don’t know the difference, but . . . I know you don’t want to talk to your dad and me, but I just want you to know that you . . . that you can if you want.”

Maya stirs her coffee. Clockwise, anticlockwise, in turn. “It’s okay, Mom. I’m feeling good.”

Kira dearly wants to believe that. She tries to keep her voice steady. “Your dad and I have been talking. I’m going to cut my hours for a while, so I can be home a bit more . . .”

“What for?” Maya blurts out.

Kira looks confused. “I thought you’d be pleased! If I’m . . . home more?”

“Why would I be pleased?” Maya wonders.

Kira squirms. “I haven’t been a good mother, darling. I’ve been so focused on my career. I should have spent more time with you and Leo. Now your dad has to focus all his effort on the club for a while, so—”

“Dad’s always focused all his effort on the club!” Maya interrupts.

Kira blinks. “I don’t want you to remember me as an absentee mom. Especially not now. I want you to feel that you’ve got a . . . normal mom.”

Maya puts her spoon down at that. Leans across the table. “Stop it, Mom. You know, I’m so damn proud of your career! Everyone else had a normal mom, but I had a role model. All the other moms have to say to their kids that they can be whatever they want when they’re older, but you don’t have to say that, because you’re demonstrating it every day.”

“Darling, I—” Kira begins, but her voice breaks.

Maya wipes her tears and whispers, “Mom. You taught me that I don’t have to have dreams. I can have goals.”

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