But fifteen years earlier they’d had an improbable stroke of luck. One of the many teachers they had visited over the years had a real passion for his profession, and he read everything he could find about new research in the field. One day he told them that he’d discovered a diagnosis that fitted Morgan’s condition: Asperger’s syndrome. A form of autism, but with normal to high intelligence in the patient. The burden of all those years of hardship seemed to lift from Monica’s shoulders the minute she heard the term for the first time. She had tasted it, rolled it around on her tongue with pleasure: Asperger’s. It wasn’t something they had simply imagined, nor were they at fault in failing to bring up their child properly. She had been right that it was difficult if not impossible for Morgan to comprehend what made daily life so much easier for everyone else: body language, facial expressions, and implicit meanings. None of this registered in Morgan’s brain. For the first time they were finally able to offer him serious help. Or rather she was. To be honest, Kaj hadn’t been particularly involved with Morgan. Not since he coldly stated that his son would never live up to his expectations. After that, Morgan had become Monica’s boy. So it was she who read everything she could find about Asperger’s and developed some basic tools that would help her son get through the day. Little cards that described various scenarios and how one was supposed to behave, role-playing games in which they practised various situations, and conversations to try and get him to understand intellectually what his brain refused to assimilate intuitively. She also took great pains to speak clearly with Morgan. To clear away all the metaphors, exaggerations and figures of speech that people used in order to give colour and meaning to language. To a large degree, she had been successful. At least he had learned to function tolerably in the world, but he still kept mostly to himself. With his computers.
That was why Lilian Florin had managed to transform Monica’s vague sense of irritation into hatred. She was able to put up with everything else. She didn’t give a damn about building codes and infringements and threats about one thing and another. As far as she was concerned, Kaj was just as much to blame in the feud, and she even believed that he sometimes enjoyed it. But the fact that Lilian had gone after Morgan, time after time, had aroused the ferocity of a tigress in Monica. Just because her son was different it seemed to give Lilian, and many others for that matter, a free hand to mock him. God forbid that anyone should be the least bit different. The mere fact that he still lived, if not at home, then on the same lot as his parents, grated on many people. But none of them was as malicious as Lilian. Some of the accusations she concocted made Monica so angry that she could hardly see straight. Many times she regretted moving to Fjällbacka. She had even taken up the matter with Kaj a few times, but she knew that it was pointless. He was far too bull-headed.
She shelved the last books from the cart and went back to see whether there were any more to collect. But her hands shook with rage when she replayed in her mind all the malicious attacks on Morgan that Lilian had instigated over the years. Not only had she run to the police a few times, she had spread false rumours in town as well, and that kind of gossip was almost impossible to refute. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, as they say. Even though practically everybody knew that Lilian Florin was a regular gossipmonger, her words gradually became accepted as truth, through the sheer force of repetition.
Now she was also garnering a large amount of sympathy in town. Much of Lilian’s nastiness had been forgiven in one blow. She had lost a grandchild, after all. But even that couldn’t make Monica feel sorry for her. No, she was saving her sympathy for the daughter. How Charlotte could be Lilian’s child was a mystery to her. It would be hard to find a nicer person, and Monica felt so sorry for Charlotte that she thought her heart would break.
But she didn’t intend to waste a single tear on Lilian.
Aina looked surprised when the doctor showed up at the clinic at his usual time, eight in the morning.
‘Hi, Niclas,’ she said hesitantly. ‘I thought you were going to come in late today.’
He just shook his head and went into his examination room. He didn’t have the energy to explain. He simply couldn’t stand to be at home for a minute longer, even though the guilt he felt at leaving was like a weight on his shoulders. Because it was a different and worse sort of guilt that made him leave Charlotte alone with her despair at home with Lilian and Stig. A guilt that made his throat tighten so he found it hard to breathe. If he had stayed there any longer he would have suffocated, he was sure of it. He couldn’t even look at Charlotte’s face, or meet her gaze. The pain in her eyes, together with his own guilt-ridden conscience, was more than he could bear. That’s why he had fled to his job instead. It was cowardly, he knew that. But he had long since lost all illusions about himself. He was not a strong or courageous person.
But he hadn’t intended for Sara to be affected. He hadn’t intended for anyone to be affected. Niclas pressed his hand to his chest as he sat as if paralysed behind his big desk, cluttered with casebooks and other papers. The pain was so sharp that he could feel it racing up and down his veins and collecting in his heart. Suddenly he understood how a heart attack must feel. That pain surely couldn’t be any worse than this.
Niclas ran his hands through his hair. What had happened, what needed to be resolved, lay before him like a baffling riddle. And yet he had to solve it. He was forced to do something. Somehow he had to get out of the bind he was in. Everything had always gone so well before. Charm, adroitness and an open and honest smile had saved him from most of the consequences of his actions over the years, but perhaps he had finally come to the end of the road.
The telephone began to ring in front of him. Consultation hours had begun. Although he felt so devastated, he had to go and heal the sick.
With Maja in a baby sling on her stomach, Erica made a desperate attempt to clean house. She had her mother-in-law’s previous visit fresh in her mind, so she almost manically pushed the vacuum cleaner round the living room. Hopefully Kristina would have no reason to go upstairs, so if Erica managed to make the ground floor presentable before she arrived, everything would be fine.
The last time Kristina came over, Maja had been three weeks old, and Erica was still in a stunned fog. The dust bunnies had been as big as rats, and the dirty dishes were piled up in the sink. Of course Patrik had made some attempts to start cleaning up, but since Erica flung Maja into his arms as soon as he came home, he had got no further than to take the vacuum cleaner out of the broom cupboard.
As soon as Kristina came in the door her face took on a disgusted expression, which disappeared only when she caught sight of her granddaughter. For the next three days Erica listened through her fog as Kristina muttered that it was certainly good she had come, or else Maja would soon develop asthma in all this dust. She said that in her day nobody sat staring at the TV all day long. Women managed to take care of a baby and a number of siblings, clean the house, and also see to it that a good meal was on the table when the husband came home. Fortunately Erica had been much too weak to be irritated by her mother-in-law’s remarks. In fact, she had been grateful for the moments she had to herself when Kristina proudly went out with Maja in the pram or helped bathe and change the baby. But by now Erica had regained some of her strength, and combined with her constant