She always used expressions like that, sometimes interspersing them with biblical quotations, though she didn’t believe in God or the devil. Never in my life did I long for something so much as I did then – to turn eighteen so I could move out. I had a job at a warehouse where I packed tin boxes eight hours a day. For that I received twenty-five kroner a week, and I gave twenty to my mother. After we had eaten dinner, my father would lie down on the divan for a nap, and my mother would sit down to knit with furious movements. Although my father always slept for a couple of hours after dinner, she took it as a personal insult. She complained that my brother never came home and visited, but when he did make a rare appearance, he brought his wife and my mother would ignore her. I sat paging through the newspaper while I gathered the courage to say I was going to the movies with a girlfriend. Then things would get so quiet between us it seemed noisy if I swallowed. Usually I waited until my father was awake to say something like that. Sometimes he took my side, though I’m sure he paid dearly for it afterward.