1994

   The oak tree had lost all its leaves by now. Its branches were withered; empty except for the white dusting of snow on each one. They prickled off in hundreds of different directions like veins across the grey corpse of the sky. The lone tree stood at the edge of the lake. Behind it, the farmlands stretched for miles, not a home in sight. No one to hear you scream, even if the winter winds didn’t carry that scream off as soon as it left your lips.

   I lit a blunt with shaking, ungloved hands. My first one ever. It tasted sweet and smoky, charred the back of my throat. I stood at the edge of the frozen lake watching the oak tree, its brittle branches swaying in the wind. The black fur coat I wore was heavy, but not as heavy as the gun in my hand. I never knew something so welcomed to be so difficult to carry. I had held it cold in my palm as I’d walked from my mother’s house, past the tire swing in the barn where my brother had spent his last night, through the fields my father had worked hard to till, but had become barren. And now, at the edge of the ice, at the end of 1994, all I could think of was Nancy Kerrigan.

   On January 6th, Nancy Kerrigan stepped off the ice rink after a practice session for the National Figure Skating Championship and was immediately clubbed above the knee. She sat, dressed in white lace, screaming ‘whywhywhy’.

   We watched the attack together. Me on the floor, carefully cutting pictures of Kate Moss and Richard Ashcroft out of a magazine, my older brother lying on the couch, high as a fucking kite, and my mother in the kitchen, one pale hand against her incredibly high forehead as she studied her visa documents.

   Nancy screamed and I dropped my scissors, covering my mouth with my hand. Lukas sat up, staring intently at the television, and my mother came into the living room, her invisible eyebrows furrowed.

   The Olympic hopeful was carried out of the stadium and my brother leaned back against the couch.

   “Shit,” he said. “I never knew ice skating was so dangerous. Better be careful, Tova, don’t want it to happen to you.”

   I turned to glare at him. He knew I didn’t skate anymore.

   “It’s unfortunate,” my mother agreed, her Swedish severity betraying concern.       “Lukas, mind your mouth,” she reprimanded before going back into the kitchen.

   Lukas nodded; closing his eyes, he let his hazy mind take over.

   In three months he would be dead.