Maybe Tonight by Kim Golden Read Free Book Online Page B

shoulder and said, “Your father is here. He wants to see your mother.”
    “Does he want to see me too?” he asked automatically, though he had the feeling the answer was no. His father never knew what to do with Mads.
    His grandfather patted Mads’s slumped shoulder. “Give him five minutes. He needs to make peace.”
    Mads wanted to tell his grandfather his father deserved nothing, but the words felt tight and prickly in his chest. Reluctantly, he released his mother’s hand and let his grandfather lead him out of the sterile hospital room. When they opened the door, Benjamin Rasmussen was leaning against a wall, his jittery hands shoved in his pants pockets as he stared down at the floor.
    He bit down the filthy words he wanted to fling at his father. They’d do no good. He just stared at him, unable to move, and wondered why now. Why come now when his mother had been in ICU for so many days? Why come now when there were so many other times they needed him?
    His father finally pushed himself away from the wall and stared at Mads, as if seeing him for the first time. In a way it was. The last time they’d met, Mads was ten. Now he was sixteen and nearly as tall as his father.
    “Is she awake?” his father asked.
    “She’s in a coma.”
    “I thought she was awake.”
    “No.”
    His father nodded. “Just as well.” And then he walked past Mads and into the room. His grandfather called after Benjamin but then the door to his mother’s room snapped shut.
    Just as well.
----
    That night, when they returned to the city and Laney had fallen asleep, Mads went for a walk and wandered the city in the wintry darkness. He told himself he was not looking for his father, but it was a lie. His cousin Henrik had warned him that Benjamin was still drinking, though not as much as before, still in Christianhavn. Mads had memorized the address. He found it easily, rang the bell and waiting to be buzzed in. The building wasn’t as shabby as he’d expected.
    According to Henrik, Benjamin lived on the fourth floor in the elevator-less building. Maybe it was a blessing. It gave him time to think through what he wanted to say. But when he was at the third floor, his resolve faltered. Above him a door creaked open and he considered retracing his steps and escaping. Then he heard a gravelly voice calling out his name.
    He swallowed hard. “
Ja, det er jeg. Jeg kommer.
“*
    At the top of the stairs, his father waited, half the man he used to be. His once coppery hair was a dull gray, his face sallow and heavily lined. He was dressed in an old fisherman’s sweater Mads remembered from long ago and faded corduroys. On his feet were felt slippers that looked slightly too large.
    “So you came,” Benjamin rasped. “Your cousin said you were looking for me. Well, now you found me. Come in.”
    Mads followed him inside, glad his father had saved him the embarrassment of whether they should hug. They did not have that sort of history, yet he knew it should have been expected. The apartment was small–only one large room with a curtain sectioning off the bedroom from the living room. It was much more orderly than he’d expected. The last time he’d visited his father at one of his state-funded apartments it had been a tip that reeked of stale cigarette smoke and alcohol.
    “Do you want coffee?” Benjamin asked but he didn’t wait for an answer. He shuffled to the small kitchenette and began prepping the coffee maker.
    Mads stood in the center of the main room and looked around. On the wall was a framed photograph of the three of them–his father, mother and Mads from the one family vacation he remembered taking with his parents. They were in front of a caravan, and his mother was laughing, her head tossed back, her hair whipping in the wind, and a six-year old Mads was laughing too, his arms spread out as if trying to grab the world, while his father smoked a cigarette and grinned at them. Where had they been? Was that the year