Chapter 8
When Tiina Nilsson goes down to the basement on Monday morning, the door of the laundry room is ajar.
She pushes it open with her foot and places the basket of dirty laundry on the worn stone floor.
She has to be at the school in Duved in an hour, and wants to set the machine going before she leaves.
She rubs her right shoulder with her left hand.
The pain comes and goes, but she can’t seem to get rid of it completely.
She has worked as a teaching assistant in the elementary school for many years, and shouldn’t be lifting the smaller children.
However, she loves her job, the kids, and her colleagues.
She flicks the switch, and the cold fluorescent light reveals the piles on the counter.
Every time Tiina sees the chaos down here, she promises herself that she will fix it at the weekend, but then something else gets in the way.
It’s not as if Ogge would think of doing it.
They have lived together for fifteen years, since Tiina was thirty-five and her girls, Anna and Andrea, were five and eight, but he has never done much around the house.
The only thing he cares about is Zelda, their dog—he loves her more than anything.
Tiina reaches for the basket to start loading the machine; then she realizes that there are already clothes in the drum. That’s weird—she doesn’t remember putting on a wash yesterday evening.
As she begins to pull out the contents, she sees that this is Ogge’s stuff.
He has shoved everything in together—pants, T-shirt, underwear, even though they are different colors and should be separated.
As a result his white tee now has a grayish tinge.
One of his sport socks is missing, but the one that remains is no longer white either.
Tiina stands there holding his damp vest. Ogge must have put a wash on overnight, even though he got home so late. She was already asleep; she was too tired to sit up and wait for him.
It’s very odd—Ogge doesn’t usually deal with his own laundry. Why would he start now?
It doesn’t matter. She hasn’t got time to stand here wondering. Not if she’s going to have breakfast before she leaves. Quickly she hangs his clothes in the drying cupboard and gets the next load underway.
Then she switches off the light and hurries back up the stairs.