The Quiet Autumn
It started with a Tuesday in October. Pia had come home from school and Lukas's door was closed.
That was not, on its own, anything. Lukas was seventeen. His door was often closed. He was studying for the leaving exams at the end of the school year. He had a band rehearsal on Thursdays. He had a girlfriend, Marit, who he saw on Saturday afternoons. He had a life that had, this last year, drifted further from the family kitchen.
What was different, Pia would think later, was that the door was closed at five in the afternoon, before Mum was home, when normally Lukas would be in the kitchen making bad toast and arguing with the radio.
Pia knocked. There was no answer. She pushed the door open a crack. Lukas was lying on his bed with his face to the wall, fully dressed, shoes still on.
"You alive?"
"Mostly."
"Want toast?"
"No thanks."
She closed the door. She did not think much of it. She made her own toast. She did her homework at the kitchen table. When her mother came home at seven, Lukas had got up, washed his face, and joined them for dinner. He had been quiet but normal-quiet. Pia did not mention the closed door.
It happened again two weeks later. Then once a week. Then most weekdays.
By mid-November, Lukas was missing dinners. Not loudly — he would say *I ate at Marit's* or *I'm not hungry* and disappear into his room. By the end of November, he had quit the band.