Childhood

He has such beautiful eyes. Sometimes he snuggles up to my chest and looks up at me, deep into my soul. Then he’s so cute that I almost want to have him, to be his mommy, to start anew and take care of him. He went through so much when he was a kid that can’t be taken back. When I asked him to tell me about his life with his father, he drew back, acted strangely, but I know a little bit. I know that his father had all sorts of questionable girlfriends, and some of them were really chaotic, but he usually had time to read in peace when his father was in a relationship. I also know—mainly because of the stories he’s told me—that his father was a drunk who didn’t tolerate weakness and mistreated his girlfriends.

Like when he was seven years old in Norway, he vomited all over the kitchen table. His father hit him so hard that he knocked him off his chair, and he continued to kick him with steel-toed boots.

Another time, his father took him to some woman’s flat and made him wait while he fucked her upstairs. But he got to watch cartoons in the living room. That was a good day to him—until they came home to find his father’s girlfriend raving, demanding to know where they’d been.

When he was twelve, he moved back to Iceland. Nobody ever talked about those years in Norway. He wouldn’t speak about the alcoholism, the violence. He often tells me that he thinks his mother is clever and beautiful, but on the few occasions he’s talked about his father, he’s marveled at how his mother could’ve been with such a jackass.