Fiction
No thanks
by Per Olvmyr
When Maj-Lis made a little visit to Johanssons, they smiled and asked if she would like some coffee.
“No thanks,” she said.
Maj-Lis followed them into the kitchen and sat on the chair,
“Some coffee?” they suggested again.
“No thanks.”
Maj-Lis sat there without moving her hands or talking about what the weekend’s weather might be. She didn’t look around, didn’t have anything to say about the new tea towels. She also didn’t mention that it was eleven years since her son died on their driveway.
“The weather is nice,” Johanssons said.
Maj-Lis pulled her tongue along her teeth inside her mouth. She didn’t even look out the window. It got quiet again. They just sat there barely looking at each other, clock ticking.
“It was a shame what happened,” one of the Johanssons said.
But Maj-Lis didn’t move. Her mouth was a straight line. A line painted there in the middle of everything else
“How about a cinnamon bun?” Johanssons said.
They put out the bun bag from the freezer. But why was the bag so loud? What is it about bun bags anyway?
“They have to be thawed first,” Johanssons said.
But they didn’t mean it that way.
Maj-Lis arms were short. They never seemed to reach anything. She had a thick white blouse and a dark skirt that went down to her knees. It looked as if she had been wearing those clothes for over a decade.
The Johanssons stared at each other. Of course she didn’t want to look out the window. Why would she? It was directed out onto the driveway, where the catastrophe took place, when they were backing out the car. They should have remembered that. When they realized this, they focused on what was in the kitchen drawers and took out the cutlery and wiped the surfaces of the sink with a dishcloth.
Maj-Lis’s look made them feel caught. Caught up in having a normal everyday life. So now one of them had to say something again.
“It was a shame what happened”.
Maj-Lis turned her head towards the other side of the wall. How strange, that she sat in Johansson’s kitchen. Exactly where her little son had been. Eleven years ago he was sitting right here. In the same place, eating bread, drinking milk and then running up to the second floor, jumping around – how simple and beautiful life was then.
But now life was cruel. The cinnamon buns smelled good. The Johanssons had put them on a plate and they were warm and there they lay like thick swollen excuses. What had been done could not be undone. The Johanssons understood. Of course they did. Still, they couldn’t say anything about that day in the driveway. Maybe they were waiting for Maj-Lis to say something.
But Maj-Lis just waited for the cinnamon roll to cool, before she got up and the right bread knife from the kitchen drawer. Always the same bread knife. The one with the black handle. Always in the same place.
And she cut the cinnamon roll. Into eleven pieces. Yes, now the cinnamon roll was cut. And the Johanssons both leaned against the kitchen table and could barely, but still forced themselves, to watch what she was doing.
After that Maj-Lis let go of the knife, and left Johansson’s without saying a word about the driveway and what had happened that day eleven years ago.