Chapter 116
Anton’s head feels better when he is woken from his morning nap by a nurse coming into his room. She introduces herself as Marie-Louise before taking his blood pressure. She tells him it’s looking pretty good, although it’s still slightly low.
“We’re planning on discharging you today,” she says, rolling up the blood pressure cuff. “As soon as the doctor has time to see you.”
“Are you very busy?”
“We’re a little understaffed, and a bad skiing accident has just come in. A knee fracture.”
Anton broke his arm near the elbow on the slopes when he was a teenager, competing in Duved. The pain was among the worst he has ever felt—indescribable. When the skeleton is damaged, the body goes into shock and thinks it is going to die.
He never wants to experience that again.
Marie-Louise sticks a digital thermometer in his ear. It beeps, and she informs him that his temperature is normal; then she checks the stitches in his forehead.
He shuffles a little farther up the bed.
“What time do you think I’ll be discharged?”
“Like I said, as soon as the doctor has time to come and see you.”
Good. He is feeling considerably better than yesterday, and really wants to get home to Duved. He has a great deal to think about.
The nurse gathers up her things. “By the way, your sister is waiting in the corridor, if you can cope with a visitor?”
Karro is here? In ?stersund?
Anton can’t work out how that has happened. He hasn’t contacted his parents or her. But he can hardly turn Karro away if she has gone to the trouble of coming all the way here.
“That’s fine,” he says. “You can let her in.”
A few moments later the door opens, and there stands his sister, who is two years younger than him, with her blond hair in a messy ponytail. As soon as their eyes meet, she bursts into tears.
“Hey, take it easy,” Anton warns her as Karro hurls herself at him and flings her arms around him. She holds him tightly, and in the end he has to push her away so he can breathe.
“It’s not so bad. I’m okay. I had a concussion and I needed a couple of stitches, that’s all.”
“You could have died.”
“But I didn’t. And I’m allowed to go home soon, when the doctor gets around to discharging me.”
Karro dries her tears and takes off her jacket. She perches on the side of the bed, and Anton realizes she is going nowhere.
“I’ll drive you.”
“It could take a while.”
“That’s fine, I can wait.”
Anton smiles at his stubborn sister. He’s so glad to see her.
“How did you know I was here?”
“Hanna called me.”
Of course she did. Karro and Hanna have been friends ever since Hanna moved to ?re—before her job was confirmed and she started working with Anton.
“Has that woman never heard of confidentiality?” he mutters. “Or loyalty to a colleague?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Karro swipes him on the arm, and suddenly everything is back to normal. He much prefers this version of his sister to the crying, anxious one.
“Maybe you’re not quite as badly hurt as I first thought,” she goes on. “In which case can we talk about the elephant in the room?”
Anton considers playing dumb, pretending he has no idea what she’s talking about.
But he is long past that stage.
“What do you want to know? You can ask me anything you want.”
“Tell me about Carl.”