Chapter 7
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 p>
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.
She pulled back far enough that I could see her face. A red mark was starting to swell on her cheek, and there was a smear of blood in the corner of her mouth. Tears streaked down the sides of her face, but she smiled at me.
“I am, my brave little man,” she whispered, then kissed my forehead. “I want you to go to your room and choose your favorite toy – just one. I’ll come in and help you pack, and then we’re going to leave p>
I remember her voice on the phone, murmuring from her bedroom, as I tried to choose one stuffed animal. I remember it being the most agonizing choice I’d ever had to make.
Then my mother came into the room with a suitcase. She grabbed things out of my drawers and stuffed them inside the suitcase with her own clothes… and she let me take two stuffed animals. I can still remember my relief and joy.
Minutes later, a taxi pulled up. We got inside and went to the bus station –
And I never saw my father again.