Free The Glitter Scene by Monika Fagerholm Page B

was needed than what they possessed in order to make the game, which was really never a game but an own world, real—a possibility. Well, been there done that and no one there is interested in witnessing the development of the fall, from A to B in that way.
    And: what remains. The astronaut. The nuclear physicist. A damned many years until college, university.
    But at the same time—these are just movements that can be sensed under the surface.
    And are never spoken about, almost no fights, reconciliations.
    An old Lifeguard’s Medal that Solveig still sleeps with under her pillow. A sign of luck. Talisman.
Pathetic
. But it disappears, as Rita starts saying: “You are, Solveig, a pathetic.”
    •
    But Doris comes to the twins’ cottage that same night. “Today I got, tomorrow I will get and get.” Doris warbling her own little song, a few hours after she raced up the hill on the First Cape only to discover that the siblings had escaped.
    Doris in the twins’ cottage, jumping around there too: clumsy dance steps on the floor, tippytoe, today … tomorrow … GET! Doris everywhere, at the table where Solveig and Tobias are trying to focus on her math homework … but mathematics, sigh, Doris does not
want
that one, yawns theatrically, you become bored after all. So Doris continues on, to the bookshelf, takes out the Swedish Academy’s word list that was Tobias’s Christmas present to the twins and that Solveig used to take with her to the cousin’s kitchen as an aid for the cousin’s mama withall of the crosswords she was solving before all of the terrible things happened and Doris Flinkenberg came to the cousin’s house. Some strange, funny word that Doris can find and take away from there; and Doris flips, flips until she realizes, which she says too, with delight,
“I
am so little, I can’t read!” And moves on to picking up different things at random, whereupon she stretches out on her stomach on Solveig’s bed, “get and get,” but drowsy now, and then of course after a moment of motionlessness as if she were sleeping, so to speak, she sticks her hand under the pillow.
    “Damn it, Doris!” Solveig’s voice suddenly surprises all of them, resounds loud and wild in the cottage. “You put my medal back!” And everything stops, is frozen. Doris above all. Doris sits up, so small pitiful afraid—as if all of the terrible things she has been through bubble up inside her, gather in her eyes in an unbearable way. Opens her hand, it is empty, but says, stammering, “Sorry, sorry …” bottom lip quivering, like a preparation for crying.
    “Now, now, girls,” Tobias says but Solveig gets up and walks out, slamming the door behind her.
    And later, that night, Solveig goes to the outbuilding farthest away on the cousin’s property alone and she has newspaper and matches with her.
    The place where Björn was found when he was dead. It is definitely burning, but just a little, nothing dangerous. The outbuilding itself will fall down under its own weight during a storm, but not until the following year, in the spring.
    But suddenly Bengt is there, with the water bucket, and puts it out.
    And everyone sees: Solveig standing and crying by the outbuilding. Rita coming, taking her hand, leading her home. They walk, Solveig crying, Rita putting her arm around her. Past the cousin’s mama who is standing on the steps of the cousin’s house, and Doris, heavy with sleep in her pajamas and big boots, just below. Rubbing her eyes, but then, shoots into the cousin’s house and as fast as lightning she is back with a blanket and runs after Rita and Solveig on the field and “if you are freezing, here,” and wants to put the blanket over Solveig’s shoulders. And Solveig stops, turns around, says a soft but very emotional “thank you” to Doris Flinkenberg.
    And it is—all of the small things that happen that evening, that night, the only release.
    •
    But later, gradually, everything evens out. In the