The Crow Girl by Erik Axl Sund Page A

does as he has taught her.
    Over time she has become better at it, and when he praises her she almost feels proud. For knowing how to do something, and being good at it.
    When he’s done she picks up the roll of toilet paper beside the gearstick and wipes her hands.
    ‘How about stopping at the shopping centre in Enköping and buying something nice for you?’ he says with a smile, giving her a tender look.
    ‘OK,’ she mutters, because she always mutters her replies to his suggestions. She never knows what they really mean.
    They’re on their way to the cottage in Dala-Floda.
    They’re going to be there on their own for a whole weekend.
    Him and her.
    She didn’t want to go.
    At breakfast she had said she didn’t want to go with him, and would rather stay at home. Then he had got up from the table, opened the fridge and taken out an unopened carton of milk.
    He had stood behind her and opened the carton, then slowly poured the chilled liquid all over her. It ran over her head, through her hair, over her face and down into her lap. A big, white puddle formed on the floor.
    Mum hadn’t said anything, just looked away, and he had gone out into the garage without a word to pack the Volvo.
    And now she’s sitting here, driving through the summer green of western Dalarna, with a big black knot of anxiety inside.
     
    He doesn’t touch her all weekend.
    He may have looked at her as she changed into her nightgown, but he hasn’t crept in beside her.
    As she lies there sleepless, listening for his footsteps, she pretends that she is a clock. She lies in bed on her stomach for six o’clock, then she turns clockwise and lies on her left side for nine o’clock.
    Another quarter turn and she’s lying on her back for twelve o’clock.
    Then her right side, three o’clock.
    Then onto her stomach again and six o’clock.
    Left side, nine, on her back, midnight.
    If she can control time, he’ll be fooled by it and won’t come in to her.
    She doesn’t know if that’s why, but he stays away from her.
     
    On Sunday morning, when they’re due to drive back to Värmdö, he is making porridge as she presents her idea. It’s the summer holidays, and she tells him she thinks it would be nice to stay a bit longer.
    At first he says she’s too little to manage on her own for a whole week. She tells him she’s already asked Aunt Elsa next door if she could stay with her, and Elsa had been really happy.
    When she sits down at the kitchen table the porridge is stone cold. The thought of the grey mass swelling in her mouth makes her feel sick, and as if it wasn’t sweet enough to start with, he’s stirred in loads of sugar.
    To dilute the taste of the swollen, disintegrating, cold oats, she takes a sip of milk and tries to swallow. But it’s hard, the porridge seems to want to come back up again.
    He stares at her across the table.
    They sit each other out, he and she.
    ‘OK. Let’s say that, then. You can stay. You know you’re always going to be Daddy’s little girl,’ he says, ruffling her hair.
    She realises that he’s never going to let her grow up.
    She will always be his.
    He promises to drive to the shop and buy supplies so she doesn’t run out of anything. When he comes back they unload the goods at Aunt Elsa’s before he drives her the fifty metres back to the cottage to pick up her bag of clothes, and when he stops by the gate she hurries to give him a peck on his unshaven cheek before quickly jumping out. She had seen his hands on their way towards her and wanted to forestall him.
    Maybe he’ll make do with a kiss.
    ‘Take care of yourself, now,’ he says before shutting the car door.
    He just sits there in the car for what must be a couple of minutes. She takes the bag and sits down on the little step up into the house. Only then does he look away and the car start to move.
    The swallows are swooping above the yard and Tupp-Anders’s dairy cows are grazing in the meadow beyond the red-painted