Read Online Lifetime by Liza Marklund - Free Book Online

– Annika always made sure the kids were warm and dry. He gathered the two of them in his arms and carried them down to the cafeteria, letting them wait indoors until he had taken their things ashore.
    By the time they finally started heading down the dirt road leading to the village, the rain had let up. The drops turned to droplets and remained suspended mid-air, shimmering and transparent. He had bribed the kids with ice cream, which meant that he would have to change every last item of clothing they had on, from head to toe, when they arrived. But he didn’t care. He was rapidly approaching the end of his tether. The relief he felt when his parents’ large red wooden house next door to the store came into view was enormous.
    ‘Thomas. Oh, Thomas, we’re so glad to see you. Why are you so late?’
    His mother hurried awkwardly down the steps, her sweater draped over her shoulders and fastened with the top button.
    ‘Now watch that hip of yours, be careful, don’t fall, Mother . . .’
    His mother clasped his face with both hands, kissing first one cheek and then the other.
    ‘You’re so cold.’
    Then she looked around.
    ‘Where’s Annika?’
    Thomas tried to compose himself, compressing his lips briefly before he answered her.
    ‘She had to go to work.’
    His mother’s dismay was genuine and monumental.
    ‘Work? Today? Well, I never . . .!’
    ‘I’m sorry we’re late, but we had to take the Norrskär, and I had so much stuff to lug along . . .’
    Suddenly, he felt wretchedly abandoned. Damn Annika.
    ‘Oh, dear! Have you dragged all that all this way? Come, let me give you a hand . . .’
    Ellen’s ice cream had melted. It fell on the garden path and the girl howled and reached for it.
    ‘I didn’t manage to bring the tent,’ Thomas said, ‘but I’ve got to change the kids. Is there anywhere we can stay?’
    ‘Now that you’re alone, you can stay in the house with us.’
    She smiled and patted his arm, a well-organized paragon of kindness and consideration.
    ‘Leave those things out here, Dad and Holger will bring them in. You don’t have to lug all that stuff. Come and have a nice hot cup of coffee and I’ll take care of the kids. Kalle, Ellen, come to Granny. My, you’re dirty, honey-bun, you need a bath.’
    Thomas took a long shower while his mother changed his kids’ clothes and treated them to Danish pastries with custard filling. The heat spread throughout his limbs, making him feel at ease. Everything would be all right, they would take care of him here. When the kids had gone to sleep he could knock back a few with his brother, maybe go fishing at dawn.
    Feeling confident, he went into the living room, wrapped in his father’s king-sized burgundy robe. The spirit of summer embraced him, the light from the sea filtered in through the large handmade glass windows and the smooth wooden floors caressed his bare feet.
    ‘Well, look who we have here. If it isn’t the handsome man from Stockholm,’ his aunt Märta exclaimed as she slowly and deliberately got up from the sofa to greet him.
    She too kissed him on the cheek and patted his arm.
    ‘Doris told us about your trip out here. I’m impressed that you made it. All by yourself, with the children and all. I do declare, modern men are fantastic. Taking care of their families and packing and all . . .’
    Slightly embarrassed, Thomas laughed and dried his ear with the towel.
    ‘Annika did the packing,’ he admitted. ‘I guess my brother’s already made it out here?’
    Aunt Märta’s smile expressed sympathy.
    ‘Poor Thomas,’ she said. ‘Your wife deserts her family in the middle of the holidays. Can’t you keep her in line?’
    Rage welled up inside him. His body went rigid and he jerked his arm away from her grip.
    ‘She’s on call this weekend, we knew this could happen.’
    As soon as he uttered the words, he knew it was the truth, that he had just blocked it out earlier.
    ‘Writing about violence and crime, is