It’s drizzling as Beverly stands on the train platform inside Central Station. Her journey south will be in a summer landscape wrapped in grey fog. It’s not until she reaches Hässleholm that the sky will clear again. She changes trains in Lund. Then from Landskrona, she takes the bus to Svalöv.
It’s been a long time since she was last home.
She remembers that Dr Saxéus assured her that things would go well.
I’ve had a long talk with your father, the doctor had said. He really wants you to come home.
Beverly is now walking across a dusty square. She pictures herself as she was two years ago: vomiting on the square because some boys had forced her to drink illegal booze. They’d taken shameful pictures of her and then dropped her off on the square. Her pappa did not want her at home after that incident.
She keeps walking. Her stomach ties in knots when she sees the country road open before her. The road leads to her farm three kilometres away. Cars used to pick her up on this road. Now she doesn’t remember why she would agree to go with them. She’d imagined she had seen something in their eyes: a special shine.
Beverly shifts her heavy suitcase to her other hand.
Down the road, dust flies up from an approaching car.
She thinks, I know that car.
She smiles and waves.
Pappa is coming! Pappa is coming!