My Friends

by Fredrik Backman

Being a parent is so strange, all our children’s pain belongs to us, but so does their joy.

He feels like telling her that the artist didn’t give her the painting because it was his inheritance, he gave it to her because he realized that she was the inheritance. Art is what we leave of ourselves in other people. But he doesn’t quite know how to say that.

“I mean… she’s great, my mom. I was just a handful as a kid, that’s all. I always hated it when she pointed to paintings and asked, ‘What does that say to you?’ It felt like a test in school. But now I’m starting to realize that it’s pretty much the nicest thing you can say to anyone. One time I asked her why she was so obsessed with what I was thinking, and she got angry and yelled: ‘Because I want to know what’s happening inside you! Because you happened to me! You happen to me every second I’m alive!’ ”