I don’t know how old I was when I first realised my mother was unhappy. I remember coming home from school one day, to find her crying in the kitchen. I don’t think she heard me come in. But I could instantly tell that she hadn’t hurt herself. The reason for her tears came from some pain deep inside her. I asked her what was wrong and what had happened, but she didn’t answer, she was far too proud for that. She probably thought I wasn’t old enough to understand what would make an adult suffer like that. I guess she was right.

As I sat down on her bed and her eyes fluttered, I brushed some hair away from her eyebrows and nose and tucked it behind her ear.

‘I’ll wait in the kitchen,’ I heard Knut say behind me.

I turned and nodded. Knut didn’t shut the door.

‘Hi,’ I said in a whisper.

When Mum heard my voice, she blinked a few times, heavily at first, then faster. Then all of a sudden, she pushed herself up.

‘Tobias,’ she said. ‘Has anything happened? Is he … has he…?’

I looked at her for a moment, then shook my head.

‘There’s no news,’ I said.

She sat up straight and pulled the duvet with her. Mum had a talent for bursting into tears. Within a second, with no warning. The day I opened the letter from Norway’s Football Association, telling me that I had been selected for the under-seventeens friendlies against Malta and Italy, the tears had flowed. She was so proud. Now she was crying again.

I waited until she had calmed down a bit. She leaned over to Knut’s bedside table for a box of tissues. She pulled one out and blew her nose. Kept it in her hand as she looked at me. Her eyes were still glazed. I wondered what kind of pills Knut had given her, and if I could talk to her properly. I decided I just had to go for it. There were too many questions gnawing at me.

‘I … I just talked to Tom Hulsker at Tobias’s school,’ I said.

She blinked. ‘To Tom?’

‘We started to talk about Dad,’ I said, unsure how to go on.

‘Why?’ There was a more guarded tone to her voice now. She was fully awake.

‘I don’t know, it just happened,’ I said, and wondered if my lie was shining like a light bulb in my eyes. ‘You know that Mari was writing an article about me for the school paper, right?’

Mum nodded.

‘One of the things we talked about was … Dad – what it was like for me to come back to Fredheim and to go to a school where everyone knew who my Dad was. Stuff like that. We also talked about … what happened to him.’

Mum squinted, as if she was trying to focus on me.