Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman Read Free Book Online Page A

home after a hotel visit, although Kent still maintains that “those sods can’t even write the correct time on the sodding ticket,” and they had to run off in the middle of the night without even having time to take a shower. So, just before Britt-Marie rushed out of the door, she ran into the bathroom to turn on the shower for a few seconds so there would be water on the floor when the cleaning staff came, and they would therefore not come to the conclusion that the guests in Room 423 had set off wearing their own dirt.
    Kent snorted at her and said she was always too bloody concerned about what people thought of her. Britt-Marie was screaming inside all the way to the airport. She had actually mainly been concerned about what people would think of Kent.
    She doesn’t know when he stopped caring about what people thought of her.
    She knows that once upon a time he did care. That was back in the days when he still looked at her as if he knew she was there. It’s difficult to know when love blooms; suddenly one day you wake up and it’s in full flower. It works the same way when it wilts—one day it is just too late. Love has a great deal in common with balcony plants in that way. Sometimes not even baking soda makes a difference.
    Britt-Marie doesn’t know when their marriage slipped out of her hands. When it became worn and scratched up no matter how manycoasters she used. Once he used to hold her hand when they slept, and she dreamed his dreams. Not that Britt-Marie didn’t have any dreams of her own; it was just that his were bigger, and the one with the biggest dreams always wins in this world. She had learned that. So she stayed home to take care of his children, without even dreaming of having any of her own. She stayed home another few years to make a presentable home and support him in his career, without dreaming of her own. She found she had neighbors who called her a “nag-bag” when she worried about what the Germans would think if there was rubbish in the foyer or the stairwell smelled of pizza. She made no friends of her own, just the odd acquaintance, usually the wife of one of Kent’s business associates.
    One of them once offered to help Britt-Marie with the washing-up after a dinner party, and then she set about sorting Britt-Marie’s cutlery drawer with knives on the left, then spoons and forks. When Britt-Marie asked, in a state of shock, what she was doing, the acquaintance laughed as if it was a joke, and said, “Does it really matter?” They were no longer acquainted. Kent said that Britt-Marie was socially incompetent, so she stayed home for another few years so he could be social on behalf of the both of them. A few years turned into more years, and more years turned into all years. Years have a habit of behaving like that. It’s not that Britt-Marie chose not to have any expectations, she just woke up one morning and realized they were past their sell-by date.
    Kent’s children liked her, she thinks, but children become adults and adults refer to women of Britt-Marie’s type as nag-bags. From time to time there were other children living on their block; occasionally Britt-Marie got to cook them dinner if they were home alone. But the children always had mothers or grandmothers who came home at some point, and then they grew up and Britt-Marie became a nag-bag. Kent kept saying she was socially incompetentand she assumed this had to be right. In the end all she dreamed of was a balcony and a husband who did not walk on the parquet in his golf shoes, who occasionally put his shirt in the laundry basket without her having to ask him to do it, and who now and then said he liked the food without her having to ask. A home. Children who, although they weren’t her own, came for Christmas in spite of everything. Or at least tried to pretend they had a decent reason not to. A correctly organized cutlery drawer. An evening at the theater every now and again. Windows you could see the world