She was running down the middle of the street. Her shirt was pulled down off one shoulder and her hair was wildly mussed like a black halo that had fallen down around her neck. Her eyes had that warrior gaze. On the handball court, people often compare her to a pit bull.
“Amina!” I cried.
She was panting hard; she glanced over her shoulder and her mouth formed a wordless scream.
At that moment, Chris came dashing around the corner behind her. One hand to his face, the other surging at his side like a sprinter.
He was chasing her.
“Run!” Amina shouted at me.
But my feet were stuck to the asphalt. Amina soon reached me and I saw her face twist.
“Run!”
I tried to find an escape route as Chris came closer and closer.
Just as I turned around, I saw the knife. A tiny movement of Amina’s hand made the blade flash in the glow of the streetlights.
Chris’s feet thundered against the asphalt.
“Come on!” I cried, dragging Amina with me.
We rounded the hedge and entered the darkness of the playground. The gravel crunched under our feet. Amina was shuddering and panting, gasping for air. It smelled like sweat and adrenaline and something else, something strong. Pepper?
“What the fuck is going on?”
Amina didn’t respond. Her gaze seemed shrouded in a thick fog. I shook her, trying to reach her, but she was completely out of it.
I took her by the wrist and forced her to look at me.
“What did he do to you?”
Her mouth opened and her lips quivered like a fish.
“I’m—sorry,” she stammered. “I broke our agreement.”
“What the fuck did he do, Amina?”
“He … he…”
The steps were coming closer. In a few seconds, we would be eye to eye with Chris.
“He raped me.”
Amina’s voice was like a kick to my gut.
“He raped you?”
An instant later, Chris rounded the corner and towered up before us. He was only a few meters away. He skidded to a stop and stood there with a hand over one eye.
I backed away. Two quick steps. I had let go of Amina but assumed she was following me.
My body tensed, my skin tightening to the breaking point. I should have been scared, I should have been terrified, but instead every cell in my body was riddled with fury. I hated him. I hated Chris Olsen so much I was about to break.
Again and again I was forced to relive my own rape: the pressure on my throat, the weight on my body, and the burning pain when he forced himself in.
How the fuck could I have let the same thing happen to Amina? If only I had listened to Linda.
Chris Olsen grunted in between gasps. He made a terrible face and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. I looked at Amina and realized that she hadn’t backed up at all. Instead she took a big step closer to Chris. The knife was trembling, threatening, in the shaky hand she had raised toward him.
“People like you don’t deserve to live,” she hissed between her teeth.
“That’s enough,” Chris said.
His voice revealed neither regret nor fear. He looked completely blank.
“Stop, Amina.”
It was my own voice.
I don’t know if she heard me. She was in another world, one where only she and Chris existed. She and her rapist. And the knife, shaking in her hand.
“Get out of here!” she said.
Chris stared at her.
“Get the fuck out!”
I stepped up beside her. The sharp blade of the knife quivered in the air right beside me. Inside, my hatred coiled like a snake, it twisted around itself, a fist about to pop.
I saw the devastation in Amina’s eyes and knew it was my fault, every last bit. If only I had listened to Linda Lokind’s warnings. How could I have been so blind?
And then Chris Olsen laughed.
I looked at my best friend and took the knife from her hand.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Pastor Markus von Martens, who both gave me a wife and read the manuscript. Thanks to Birgitta Ekstrand and Monika Wieser for invaluable insights. Thanks to Zackarias Ekman for general brilliance and legal expertise. Thanks to everyone at Bokförlaget Forum and Bonnierförlagen. Thanks to Astri, Christine, Kaisa, Marit, and Kajsa at Ahlander Agency. It’s an honor to work with you. You’re all shining stars. Thanks to Karin and Peter at Kult PR.
Thanks to everyone at Celadon Books. I am so delighted to work with your brilliant team. Thanks to Deb for everything! And thanks to Vicki at Pan Macmillan! You both made this book even better.
Without my editor, John Häggblom, this novel would not be what it is. Thanks for your meticulousness and your wisdom, and for believing in me from the start. Without my Swedish publisher, Karin Linge Nordh, everything would have been worse. Thank you for everything. Without my agent, Astri Ahlander, this book probably wouldn’t exist. I’m so happy and thankful for everything you do for me. Without Kajsa, Ellen, and Tove, there would have been no point.
About the Author
M. T. Edvardsson is a writer and teacher from Trelleborg, Sweden. The author of three previous novels and two books for young readers in Sweden, Edvardsson lives with his family in Löddeköpinge, Sweden. A Nearly Normal Family has been sold in thirty-one territories. You can sign up for email updates here.
About Celadon
Founded in 2017, Celadon Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers, publishes a highly curated list of twenty to twenty-five new titles a year. The list of both fiction and nonfiction is eclectic and focuses on publishing commercial and literary books and discovering and nurturing talent.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Prologue
Part One: The Father
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Part Two: The Daughter
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Part Three: The Mother
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About Celadon
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A NEARLY NORMAL FAMILY. Copyright © 2019 by M. T. Edvardsson. English language translation copyright © by Rachel Willson-Broyles. All rights reserved. For information, address Celadon Books, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.celadonbooks.com
Cover design by Anne Twomey
Cover image by Andrew Bret Wallis / Getty Images
ISBN 978-1-250-20443-1 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-23112-3 (international, sold outside the U.S., subject to rights availability)
ISBN 978-1-250-20442-4 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250204424
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
Originally published in Sweden in 2018 by Forum as En helt vanlig familj
Published in agreement with Ahlander Agency
First U.S. Edition: June 2019
First International Edition: June 2019
A Nearly Normal Family Page 36