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“Get the Bugatti ready,” I said in a daze. “I’m going to have to chase her down.”
There was a pause.
“…uh… did you say ‘her’?”
I ignored the question as I raced back for the house.
It couldn’t be her –
It COULDN’T be –
PART II
7
Lars
My first memories are vague – hazy snapshots, really.
Ducks in the canals of Stockholm, Sweden…
Beautiful pastries stacked behind glass in a bakery…
Puddles on cobblestone walkways after it rained.
But the first truly vivid memory I have is my mother screaming…
And me running into the room to protect her.
My father was an alcoholic. He used to go out drinking with his buddies after work ended at the factory, then come home in a terrible mood. That’s something my mother told me when I was older, not something I can recall.
I don’t remember anything specific until the night I heard her screaming and I ran into the room.
She was sitting on the bed, hunched over and shielding her head with her hands.
My father stood above her menacingly, his hand balled into a fist.
I was only four years old, but I flung myself between them, looked up at my father, and screamed at the top of my lungs, “DON’T YOU HURT HER!”
I remember the stink of liquor on him. I remember the rage in his eyes, and I remember bracing myself as he pulled back his arm to strike me –
When my mother’s arms wrapped around me from behind and pulled me onto her lap.
“STOP IT – HE’S A CHILD!” she shrieked.
The rage in my father’s eyes turned to shame – then back to anger.
But the spell was broken. He turned away, cursing my mother with words I’d never heard before and didn’t know the meaning of.
He swiped his arm across the top of the dresser and dashed a ceramic music box of hers against the wall, shattering it into pieces.
Then he stomped out of the room. A few seconds later, we heard the front door slam.
My mother cradled me in her arms and rocked us both back and forth.
In retrospect, I think she was trying to calm herself as much as comfort me.
“Are you okay, Mama?” I remember asking.
