Chapter 86
Anton is driving toward Sadeln. He can’t stop thinking about where Pontus might have gone. The fact that he was able to sneak out of the house last night without being seen feels like a failure on the part of the police, so in the end Anton decided to skip lunch and take a look around.
It would be good if he could track down Pontus by himself, prove that he deserves his place with the Serious Crimes Unit.
“What do you want?”
His tone is brusque, but rather that than let her know how empty and sad he feels. He has no intention of breaking down again in her company.
Yesterday evening was enough.
“Anton,” she says, and starts crying.
He can’t deal with her emotions as well as his own. It’s too much. He tried calling Carl this morning, and once again it went straight to voicemail. The fact that he has broken off relations with his parents for Carl’s sake doesn’t help if he can’t actually tell Carl what has happened.
It feels hard, being rejected by everyone.
“Anton.” Another sob.
It’s not his mother he’s angry with; she can’t help it if her husband is an asshole.
“What is it?” he says more gently.
It sounds as if she is trying to pull herself together; he hears her take several deep breaths.
“I had no idea . . . Why have you never said anything about your . . . inclination?”
The accusatory note in her voice immediately puts Anton on the defensive again.
Why does she think?
Obviously he has wanted to come out to his parents for a very long time, but the scene yesterday confirmed what he has always feared—that there would be no understanding whatsoever at home.
His father is stuck in his outdated way of thinking. An old soldier who always believes he knows best, and is not prepared to change his point of view.
Not even for the sake of his own son.
He behaves as if he were born in the nineteenth century.
However, Anton doesn’t get how his mother could have been so blind. Isn’t a mother supposed to be the first one to understand her child? How could she not realize how things stood?
If feels as if she too has denied him.
“Anton?” She takes a jagged breath. “Are you there?”
He has reached the exit road for Sadeln, and signals left. He stops at the junction, waiting for a gap in the oncoming traffic.
“How can you even ask why I’ve never said anything until now?” he says. “Wasn’t it obvious yesterday, given Dad’s reaction?”
“You know what he’s like. He overreacted, he can’t help it.”
Anton has grown up with his father “overreacting.” And with his mother doing her best to smooth things over, explain it away.
She has always acted as the buffer within the family, the one who tried to pour oil on troubled waters. Sometimes she has jokingly referred to herself as Switzerland, a small neutral country caught between two superpowers in conflict.
The difference is that Anton doesn’t want to be part of it anymore.
You can’t choose your family, but you can choose to remove them from your life.
“You have to give him time to digest all this,” his mother begs. “Can’t you talk to him?”
Anton grips the wheel tightly. Then he speaks from the heart, without mincing his words.
“I never want to see him again. Nor you, if you’re taking his side.”
He hears a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.
“You can’t ask that of me—you can’t expect me to choose between my husband and my son,” his mother whispers.
She sounds devastated, but it is what it is. Anton can’t help her; it’s out of his hands.
“I’m not asking anything of you.”
He changes to a lower gear as he drives up the steep hill leading to Sadeln.
Then he corrects himself.
“Actually, I am. I want the two of you to accept me as I am. Otherwise we’re done.”