Pills of love

Keep an eye on Dan

Benny slowly turned over the next page of the script in his hand.

He sighed and looked up, craning his neck to relax tense muscles. He looked around the spacious garden surrounding the studio. The day was quite warm even though it was still February and so he had positioned himself on the large wooden porch in his shirt and sweater, a steaming cup of coffee on the side table and the script of their imminent new theater work in his lap.

For various reasons, he had postponed the complete reading of the script with all the added music parts and was taking advantage of that moment of quiet to catch up. As lazy as he was, he hated being behind on his work, so it was time to get moving.

"Stop it!".

Benny looked up again and rested his chin on his hand, gazing off into the distance at the nearby swing sets where his children were laughing, swinging slowly. Benny got lost in looking at them.

They were grown up now, they had grown up without even realizing it. Luckily he had managed to build a lot together with them and he was always grateful for that. Those two little chubby toddlers who followed him like a shadow when he was at home were now two responsible and intelligent young adults.

Benny cracked an amused smile when he saw Peter sneakily give a quick tug on Heléne's swing to make her spin around quickly, causing her to scream again, triggering laughter from both of them.

Benny tugged at his mustache and narrowed his eyes, looking at his watch. Peter had come with him to the studios because they were soon due to record a special for Stig's birthday, he and Bjorn having been contacted weeks earlier by a well-known television broadcast that wanted to celebrate it. And by now Peter was almost entirely part of the studio staff, even if he was still looking for his own independent dimension as a musician, away from his father's heavy shadow.

Heléne had joined them when she learned that they would all be reunited. All four of them.

Him, Bjorn, Agnetha and Frida.

Benny sighed again, pursing his lips. The occasions to meet all together again were now increasingly rare. Agnetha had retired to work privately and Frida... Well, she had even changed country to get away from there.

Benny snorted silently, running a hand over his face. Get away from there... from him... from everything.

He had been... Yes, he had been mad at her. She had packed up overnight and gone elsewhere. France, England, Switzerland... Abandoning everything.

He sighed and shifted nervously in his chair. He still couldn't explain exactly why this bothered him so much. They were divorced, he shouldn't have cared about her, about her movements, about her decisions. Yet there he was, once again, looking for answers that even he didn't know where to look for them, but above all why he was looking for them.

He looked up at his children again, heads now almost touching, talking about knows what. They were also probably a reason why he was so mad at her.

They loved her as a friend, as a confidant, as a mother... And she was gone. She had left them there, without looking back. At least that was what he had convinced himself of, it was what he had wanted to convince himself of when he had seen Peter's look when he had told him that they had broken up... That he had found another woman... Or when he had seen the tears on Heléne's face when he told her that they would have to collect their belongings from home in Lidingö...

It was irrational to still feel that anger in the center of his chest, wasn't it? After all, it was he who had given the final blow to their relationship, it was he who, between staying and running away, had chosen to run away. And yet he couldn't help accusing her, blaming her for most of the reasons why he had heard his children cry in pain, why he had had to argue with them because they couldn't understand...

Benny frowned, watching Heléne get off the swing and head towards the studios, leaving Peter still sitting there, rocking almost by inertia. His boy was now almost a man in many things, but it was also still his boy who looked at him with that little smile and eyes full of curiosity, so silent, so full of sweetness. He had suffered the most, he had closed himself in his silence from which he and Frida had worked so hard to get him out, to become more extroverted, more exuberant.