The Deal of a Lifetime

by Fredrik Backman

I hope my younger self would have read it and found it to be . . . well . . . not horrible. I think he and I could have gone for a beer. Talked about choices. I would have shown him pictures of my family and he would have said, “Alright. You did alright.”

THE FACT THIS ISN'T EVEN PART OF THE BOOK

Most of us so desperately want to believe that every heart which stops beating is missed equally. If we’re asked, “Are all lives worth the same?” the majority of us will reply with a resounding “Yes!” But only until someone points to a person we love and asks: “What about that life?”

When she first learned to speak, the adults thought she was calling it “Babbit” because she couldn’t say “Rabbit.” But she called it Babbit because Babbit was its name.

“I’m going to die soon, Babbit. Everyone dies, it’s just that most people will die in maybe a hundred thousand years but I might die already tomorrow.” She added, in a whisper: “I hope it’s not tomorrow.”

“Is it cold on death?” she asked Babbit. But Babbit didn’t know. So the girl packed thick gloves in her backpack, just to be on the safe side.

When five-year-old girls die, no one writes about that, there aren’t any memorials in the evening papers, their feet are still too small, they haven’t had time to make anyone care about their footsteps yet.

Every parent will take five minutes in the car outside the house from time to time, just sitting there. Just breathing and gathering the strength to head back inside to all of their responsibilities. The suffocating expectation of being good, coping.

The only thing of value on Earth is time. One second will always be a second, there’s no negotiating with that.”

You despise me now, because I’ve devoted all my seconds to my work. But I have, at least, devoted them to something. What have your friends’ parents devoted their lives to? Barbecues and rounds of golf? Charter holidays and TV shows? What will they leave behind?

I abandoned you, but at least I abandoned you at the top of the hierarchy of needs.

I looked you in the eye and said: “Life isn’t fair.” You bit your lip. Lowered your eyes and replied: “Lucky for you.” You might have stopped being mine that day, I don’t know. Maybe that’s when I lost you. If that’s the case, I was wrong. If that’s the case, life is fair.

“Don’t be brave. If you’re scared, be scared. All survivors are.”

The mother asked, “Who do you want to invite to your next birthday party?” even though there wouldn’t be a next one. And the girl played along, reeled off the names of everyone she loved. It’s a long list when you’re five. That morning, I was on it.

Your mother once screamed that I’m the kind of person who doesn’t have any equals, I only have people above me that I want something from and people beneath me who I trample on. She was right, so I kept going until there was no one left above me.

I bluntly asked you whether you were happy. Because I am who I am. And you replied: “It’s good enough, Dad. Good enough.” Because you knew I hated that phrase.

You were always someone who could be happy. You don’t know how much of a blessing that is.

You never played poker again. I failed with you. I tried to make you tough. You ended up kind.

Maybe it was just the smoke, but a lonely tear ran down her cheek as she whispered: “It’s against the rules for us to have favorites. It makes us dangerous, if we do. But sometimes . . . sometimes we have bad days at work too. You screamed so loudly when I came to get your brother, and I turned around and happened to look you in the eye. We’re not meant to do that.”

I sobbed despairingly. “Then why did you take him? Why do you take everyone I love?”

Happy people don’t create anything, their world is one without art and music and skyscrapers, without discoveries and innovations. All leaders, all of your heroes, they’ve been obsessed. Happy people don’t get obsessed, they don’t devote their lives to curing illnesses or making planes take off. The happy leave nothing behind. They live for the sake of living, they’re only on earth as consumers. Not me.

I walked along the beach out by Råå, the morning after the diagnosis, and I saw two dogs running into the sea, playing in the waves. And I wondered: Have you ever been like that, as happy as they are? Could you be that happy? Would it be worth it?

All you normal people would have tried to save the child if you could, wouldn’t you? Of course you would. So when the woman with the grey sweater opened the door to the girl’s room, part of me cracked, because it turns out that I’m more normal than I thought. I shoved the woman, grabbed the folder, and then I ran. As though I were one of you.

You humans always think you’re ready to give your lives, but only until you understand what that really involves. You’re obsessed with your legacy, aren’t you? You can’t bear to die and be forgotten.”

We said very little, because there was too much I wanted to say. That’s always when we fall silent.

I thought about the love in your hands. You’ve always touched the things you like as though they had a pulse. You cared about that bar, adored this town. The people and the buildings and the night as it approached over the Sound. Even the wind and the useless soccer team. This has always been your town in a way it never was for me; you never tried to find a life, you were in the right place from the start.

That’s what fathers do, they sit in front of their sons and tell their son’s stories to a third person rather than letting them speak for themselves.

“You don’t care?” I asked. “I really, really, really don’t,” she replied. And you laughed then. Loudly. It made me sing inside.

It showed. I should have told you that. Not for your sake, because you won’t remember any of this, but for mine. I should have told you I was proud.

“You’re not scared. You’re just grieving. No one tells you humans that your sorrow feels like fear.”

Vei

And as we jumped inwards, the woman with the folder and I, I saw Helsingborg as you’ve always seen it, for the briefest of moments. Like the silhouette of something you recognize. A home. It was our town then, finally, yours and mine. And that was good enough.

You’ll wake up soon. It’s Christmas Eve morning. And I loved you.