The Sandman

44

Reidar can hear what Mikael’s saying, but he’s still having trouble absorbing the significance. He stands beside his son’s bed, looking at him and speaking in a soothing voice.

But his thoughts are going round in circles, around one single idea. He has to find Felicia. She mustn’t be left on her own.

He stares into the middle distance, then walks heavily over to the window. Far below some sparrows are sitting in the bare rose bushes. Some dogs have pissed in the snow under a lamppost. Over at the bus stop a glove is lying beneath the bench.

Somewhere behind him he hears Joona Linna try to find out more from Mikael. His deep voice merges with the heavy thud of Reidar’s heartbeat.

You only see your mistakes in hindsight, and some of them are so painful that you can hardly live with yourself.

Reidar knows that he was an unfair father. That was never his intention, it just turned out that way.

Everyone always says that they love their children equally, he thinks. Yet we still treat them differently.

Mikael was his favourite.

Felicia always irritated him, and sometimes made him so angry that he frightened her. In hindsight it seemed incomprehensible. After all, he was an adult and she was just a child.

I shouldn’t have shouted at her, he thinks, staring out at the overcast sky and feeling that his left armpit is starting to really hurt now.

‘I can feel her the whole time,’ Mikael is telling Joona. ‘Now she’s just lying there on the floor... she’s so terrified.’

Reidar lets out a groan as he feels a burst of pain in his chest. Sweat is running down his neck. Joona rushes over to him, grabs the top of his arm and says something.

‘It’s nothing,’ Reidar says.

‘Does your chest hurt?’ Joona asks.

‘I’m just tired,’ he replies quickly.

‘You seem—’

‘I have to find Felicia,’ he says.

A burning pain shoots through his jaw and he feels another stab in his chest. He falls, hitting his cheek against the radiator, but all he can think is how he shouted at Felicia and told her she was useless the day she disappeared.

He gets to his knees and is trying to crawl as he hears Joona come back into the room with a doctor.