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hilarious: I never loved you, babe, however much you thought you deserved it. I called you Mom because it made life simpler for me. When I did what I did it was because you let me. Because that’s the way I am
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    Rolf. At least you told me not to call you Dad. You really tried to love me. But you couldn’t ignore nature; you realized you loved yourown flesh and blood more: Stein and Irene. When I told other people you were “my foster parents” I could see the wounded expression in Mom’s eyes. And the hatred in yours. Not because “foster parents” hit a sore spot, but because I wounded the woman you, incomprehensibly, loved. I think you were honest enough to see yourself as I saw you: a person who at some point in your life, drunk on your own idealism, thought you could raise another man’s son but soon realized that you came up short. The monthly sum they paid you for living expenses didn’t cover the real cost. Then you discovered that I was a cuckoo in the nest. That I ate everything. Everything you loved. Everyone you loved. Rolf, you should have realized earlier and kicked me out! You were the first to catch me stealing. At first it was only a hundred kroner. I denied it. Said Mom gave it to me. “Isn’t that right, Mom? You gave it to me.” And Mom nodded after some hesitation, with tears in her eyes, said she must have forgotten. The next time it was a thousand. From your desk drawer. Money meant for our vacation, you said. “The only vacation I want is from you,” I answered. And then you slapped me for the first time. And it triggered something in you, because you kept on hitting. I was already bigger than you, but I’ve never been able to fight. Not like that, not with fists and muscles. I fought another way. But you kept hitting me, with a clenched fist now. And I knew why. You wanted to destroy my face. Take away my power. But the woman I called Mom intervened. So you said it. The word
. Thief.
True enough. But it meant I would have to crush you, little man
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    Stein. The silent big brother. The first to recognize the cuckoo, but smart enough to keep his distance. The smart lone wolf who upped and left for a university town as far away as possible and as soon as he could. Who tried to persuade Irene, his dear little sister, to join him. He thought that she could finish school in fricking Trondheim, that it would do her good to get away from Oslo. But Mom put a stop to it. She knew nothing, of course. Didn’t want to know
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    Irene. Lovely, freckled, fragile Irene. You were too good for this world. You were everything I wasn’t. And yet you loved me. Would you have loved me if you’d known? Would you have loved me if you’d known I was screwing your mother from when I was fifteen? Screwing your red-wine-soaked, whimpering mother, taking her from behind against the bathroom door or the cellar door or the kitchen door while whispering “Mom” in her ear because it made both her and me hot. She gave me money, she covered for me, she said she only wanted to borrow me until she was old and ugly and I met a nice, sweet girl. And when I answered, “But, Mom, you are old and ugly,” she laughed it off and begged for more
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    I still had bruises from my foster father’s punches and kicks the day I called him at work and told him to come home at three—there was something important I had to tell him. I left the front door ajar so she wouldn’t hear him come in. And I talked dirty to drown out his footsteps, said the sweet nothings she liked to hear
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    Through the reflection in the kitchen window, I saw him standing in the doorway
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    He moved out the next day. Irene and Stein were told that Mom and Dad hadn’t been getting along for a while and had decided to separate. Irene was broken-hearted. Stein was still in Trondheim, and he answered with a text:
SAD. WHERE WOULD U LIKE ME TO GO 4 XMAS?
    Irene cried and cried. She loved me. Of course she came after me. The Thief
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    The church bells ring for the