Member-only story
NOVEL EXCERPT
Suspicion
“Lonely Planet has named this town as the ugliest city in the world.”
When I came back it was night. Then house lay there silent and I went in as quietly as I could. I climbed the stairs and put myself to bed in the other bedroom.
The next day I was exhausted and barely got up from bed. When I got down to the kitchen he sat there. There was complete silence in the house. He just sat there and watched. The face expressionless. He looked at me and asked:
“Where have you been?”
He looked at me, and I couldn’t meet his gaze. He repeated the question.
“Where have you been?”
I sat with the phone in my hand. He looked at it and said:
«You have to look more closely at it, it probably says something about it, I think — wherever you have been. Whatever you have done.”
I said nothing. I could sense the resentment in his voice. The weak quiver when he is angry. Angry and scared.
I said his name, took a step forward, but then I stopped. There was a resistance, there was no point in it.
He sat silently with the newspaper on the table in front of him. Seemed quite calm, almost a little apathetic. I waited, thinking we had to get through this now. We just had to.
“There’s coffee on the pitcher.”
I almost laughed when he talked. The words came so naturally, so completely by themselves. As if this was a perfectly ordinary day at the kitchen.
(…)
From the novel The Happiest Town in the World, Chapter 19
