Read Online The Viper by Hakan Ostlundh - Free Book Online Page B

herself. Be strong. But where would she get the strength from?
    She had left Simon and Joakim at Anneli’s on Karlbergsvägen and taken the ferry back to Gotland to take care of a few things at work. Maybe also just to get a chance to breathe a little. Not to have to be strong for a moment. Maybe so she could have a breakdown. She wasn’t sure. There was so much to think about, to take responsibility for. How long could they stay in Stockholm? What was best for the kids? How long could they be away from school? How long would it take before Fredrik was well enough to be moved to Visby? Would he even be able to receive the care that he needed there? Should she and the kids be moving up there instead?
    She had climbed into the car at the Högby school parking lot. She had planned on driving home, but continued south and now she was on her way to Hablingbo. On her way? No, she wasn’t on her way anywhere. She was just driving. She was on the road between Havdhem and Hablingbo, but that was all you could say with any certainty.
    She had pinned her hair up behind her neck so that it wouldn’t be so obvious how matted and dirty it was. It had been several days since she last put on any makeup, but there were faint shadows of smeared mascara on her eyelids. She wished that she had a cigarette. She had quit smoking eighteen years ago, but now she wished that she had a full pack of wonderful cigarettes to light up and inhale to put a fog between herself and reality.
    The car rolled the last few feet up to the stop sign next to the electrical goods store in Hablingbo. If it had still been a supermarket she could have stopped and bought cigarettes. But it seemed as if everything closed down on this godforsaken island. Everyone shut up shop, moved away.
    Ninni turned left out onto the coast road without really knowing why, guided by a vague yet persistent feeling.
    And how about that whole thing with Mother?! Ninni had asked her for help. How fucking stupid was that? She should have known better and spared herself the disappointment. Mother was playing a key role at some conference or other, and then she would be flying off to Helsinki for two days, and then her best friend was coming to visit her all the way from Umeå—and that had already been booked a long time ago—for about a week or so, at least over the weekend.
    Ninni shuddered inside and nearly burst into tears, but she pulled herself together, didn’t let it get beyond a short sniveling.
    Mother had made no attempt to hide her disappointment when Ninni told her that she was moving to Gotland. She would have so far to travel to see her and the kids. And Ninni had felt guilty, that she was robbing her mother of something that meant a lot to her. It was only after they had moved that she realized that her mother almost never had time for them. On those rare occasions when she did have time, it was always on her terms, when a little opening had appeared in her chockablock schedule.
    The wiper motor squeaked, the tires spattered. Where was she going? She didn’t know.
    She had a goal, she felt it, but she couldn’t see it in front of her and after nearly an hour of driving around aimlessly, she pulled up in front of her own house. Pitch dark and deserted.
    She unlocked the door, wriggled out of her coat, tossed it onto a chair in the kitchen, and sat down on another one. She stared vacantly at the dirty dishes in the sink.
    The big question was whether the bleeding between his skull and brain had cut off the supply of oxygen before they had managed to reduce the pressure. The CAT scan looked good, but it didn’t show everything the little woman doctor with the peppercorn eyes had explained. The more she had explained, the more Ninni sensed that the brain was unknown territory even for doctors. Wait and see, was the order of the day. There was nothing to suggest that Fredrik couldn’t make a complete recovery, but at the same time they couldn’t promise anything. In any