ALEXANDRA

5.00 P.M.

‘What?! You’re both out of your minds!’

Bea’s scream cut through Alexandra’s body and reminded her of the horrible period when Bea was a baby and had colic.

‘So it’s not true that you created a false Instagram account and bullied a girl on the internet?’ she said in a reasonably calm and controlled voice, searching in vain for Patrik’s eyes for help in getting the truth out of their daughter. But he was staring down at the kitchen table, and as usual had turned the fight over to her.

They’d just had a call from a teacher who’d told them what Bea and her friends had subjected the girl to, and apparently it wasn’t the first time. The problems had started when Bea was in sixth grade and had stopped thriving at school. In high school, she was placed in a remedial class, and since then it had all just gotten even worse. Now she hung around with a group of young people, all of whom had problems of one sort or another, and together they seemed to have lost all respect for those around them. Alexandra had tried to get the school to put her in a different class, but they refused. No one could manage her in class, and they maintained that she would disturb the other students, which presumably they were right about, but Alexandra felt betrayed by the school — as if they’d given up on her daughter. She no longer knew what she ought to do. A few times, Alexandra had thought about reporting Bea herself to Social Services, but she knew that that would most likely lead to an investigation of their family.

‘That girl tried to kill herself,’ Alexandra continued.

‘That’s not my fault!’

‘May I look at your phone?’ Alexandra reached out her hand.

‘No.’

‘Give it to me.’

‘No.’

Alexandra clenched her hand and closed her eyes.

‘Hit me, then. Do it. I can see that you want to.’

‘Do what your mother says now, Bea. Give her your phone.’

Alexandra looked at her husband with surprise.

Furiously, Bea pulled the phone out of her pocket and gave it to Alexandra, who threw it in the sink and turned on the tap.

‘You’re not going to get a new phone. You are going to write a letter and apologise. Post an apology on Facebook and Instagram and whatever those things are called.’

‘Forget that! And how would I do that without a phone, do you think? Bitch!’

Patrik looked at his daughter. ‘Are the accusations true?’

‘No, I just said that.’

Patrik gave Alexandra a puzzled look.

She tried to interpret what was going on in his head. ‘The school called and told me what had happened. Apparently, it was Max, Frida, and Matilda as well, and a few other girls. What will people say? The parents are considering filing a police report on this. You’re going to end up in jail if you keep carrying on the way you are. Do you understand what happens to you if you end up in prison or get convicted in Sweden? You’ll never be able to wash it away, you’ll never get a job, or even a mobile phone account.’ Alexandra stared at the phone under the running water in the sink and hoped that its whole history was draining away.

‘What do we really know about Frida and Matilda? Why haven’t I met them?’ Patrik asked, as if he was on another planet.

‘Because you can’t bring anyone home to this freaky family.’

‘Did they force you to do this?’ Patrik said.

What kind of protective glasses did he have on? ‘Excuse me?’ Alexandra hissed. ‘How can you be so gullible?’

‘Did you do this, Bea?’

‘No. How many times do I have to answer that question? What is it you don’t understand?’

‘Are you completely crazy?’ Alexandra stood up. ‘A child is about to kill herself because of you, Bea, and this isn’t the first time we’ve had complaints about your behaviour. Now the teachers have called a meeting as apparently you’ve been up to a lot of shit recently.’

‘She wasn’t going to kill herself, that’s just a game that you dense parents fall for.’ Bea’s face and neck were completely red.

‘I’m ashamed. Do you hear me? I’m ashamed,’ said Alexandra. ‘Why are you doing this to us?’

‘Huh?’ Bea screamed so loud that her vocal cords failed her at last. ‘You are ashamed. What the hell do you think I am? Do you think I asked to live in this family, or what? Don’t you have any idea what they say about me, the talk that’s going around?’

What did she mean by that? What did people know? ‘Are they taunting you?’ Alexandra tried to collect herself.

‘Taunting, is that a Polish word from the nineteenth century?’

‘Stop that!’ Patrik said.

‘And what do you suggest we do, Patrik?’ said Alexandra. ‘Ignore this and let Bea keep bullying the girl until she really does kill herself? Just so that we can keep living the way we do. How many people do you think you need to kill in the process?’

‘Now you stop!’ Patrik roared, and Alexandra recognised their daughter’s dark look in his. ‘What are you trying to insinuate?’

Alexandra stopped herself from saying what she really wanted to say. ‘That our daughter has to accept the consequences. She should apologise to that girl.’

‘Not in this lifetime.’

‘Go to your room. Do you hear me? Go to your room!’

‘You fucking cunt!’ Bea screamed, running out of the kitchen.

‘Can we all take a little break and think about this?’ Mother-in-law Eva had suddenly come into the room. ‘There’s a lot going on now, for everyone, and we need to calm down. Especially you, Alexandra.’

‘Yes, you’ve got to calm down,’ said Patrik, staring at his wife.

‘Me? I’m the one who needs to calm down? Who is it, really, who’s made her like that?’ She fixed her eyes on him, but his gaze was stronger than hers, and she was forced to lower her eyes.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You heard her — she has to defend herself because of your choices in life.’ Alexandra felt very shaky.

‘She made a mistake.’

‘A mistake, how can you call it that?’

‘We know nothing about it yet. Right now, we have to try to look at this like two grown people.’

‘Ha, yes. Then maybe you can start taking a little responsibility.’

‘I’m not going to dignify that with a response, but I know that it’s tough being a teenager. Maybe she needs to see a psychologist to talk it out.’

‘A psychologist. She wouldn’t need therapy if we didn’t live like this.’

‘If it doesn’t suit you, then I guess you can just go back to Poland,’ said Eva. ‘Maybe it works there when you flare up the way you do.’

Alexandra pretended not to hear her. ‘Bea needs to accept the consequences of her actions. She needs us. I can’t handle her by myself.’

‘Why are you saying that?’

‘Because you’re not here that often. I can’t understand how you can want to have more children. How would you have time for that — do you understand how much you’ve already left to me to deal with?’

He raised his hand.

She had gone too far and sank down on the chair across from her mother-in-law.

‘This is going to get even worse. I’m almost afraid of her. I don’t know what she’s capable of. Have you seen her look? It can go completely black. Sometimes, I wonder if she’s evil.’ She regretted saying that out loud, but the words just came out of her.

‘How can you say that about our Bea? She needs discipline, that’s all. We’ll take care of this. I’ll help you.’

‘Help me?’ She snorted and thought of all the mornings when she had to scream at Bea, force her off to school, worry about what she was up to during the day, and sometimes even at night.

‘Stop, you know what I mean. Don’t get me wrong here. I, we, are having a tough time at the moment. It’s clear that this has all affected Bea. She also lost a sibling.’

He didn’t understand anything at all. How could he be so clueless? Bea had loathed the thought that she was going to have a sibling. Almost more than Alexandra did.

‘You get the children you deserve,’ Eva said, hammering the last nail in the coffin.

Alexandra looked slowly about her, in the complete kitchen, in the perfect home. Everything was about to fall apart, and it was just going ahead, right in front of her eyes.