Chapters (46)
- Cover
- Other Titles
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Friday
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- Saturday
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- Sunday
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- Monday
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The table is littered with breakfast detritus and her kids are still in pyjamas. Katriina pours herself a second cup of coffee – she usually allows herself only one cup at home, but she has made a whole pot out of habit because Shawn drinks coffee like it’s the end of the world, and now she feels bad about letting it go to waste. Her plan had been to hit the gym before going into the office, but Tommy and Petey had derailed that by insisting on finishing the stupid cartoon they were watching, and even though Katriina had been excited to get an early start on the day, she isn’t going to be that mother who won’t let her sons watch cartoons on Sunday morning. Now they are dragging their heels at breakfast, and seemingly making a new mess as quickly as she can clean up the last one.
“Well, maybe your grandma and grandpa have Froot Loops,” she says, even though she knows that her parents will have nothing in the way of cereal except All-Bran. She would rather leave Tommy and Petey almost anywhere other than with her parents, who have never really known what to do with children, not even when Hanna and Katriina were young. But Katriina feels like she has blown much of the goodwill she had stored with Hanna, and she doesn’t want to go to Victor Street for fear of running into Shawn.
“Can you pack me a lunch for Grandma and Grandpa’s?” Tommy asks. “I don’t want to eat their weird shit.”
“Tommy!” Katriina says.
“Weird stuff,” he says, blushing. “I don’t want to eat their weird stuff.”
“I don’t want to eat their weird shit either,” Petey says. Tommy laughs, rocking back in his chair, and then he is falling backwards, holding on to the tablecloth to try to pull himself back up, and before Katriina can even move, he is lying on the floor with the entire contents of the breakfast table on top of him, silverware clanging to the ground, glasses shattering, the sugar bowl spraying everywhere, Cheerios floating by on rivulets of milk like life rafts, converging with little streams of orange juice to make one big curdling puddle. Petey laughs, but Tommy starts to cry. Katriina leans her head against the cupboard and closes her eyes.
10 a.m.