The Deal of a Lifetime

by Fredrik Backman

I was born here but I’ve never gotten used to it; Helsingborg and I will never find peace. Maybe everyone feels that way about their hometown: the place we’re from never apologizes, never admits that it was wrong about us.

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. Every parent will take ten seconds in the stairwell occasionally, key in hand, not putting it in the lock.

“Are you brave too?” “What?” “Everyone always says I’m so brave.” Her eyelids fluttered. So I replied honestly: “Don’t be brave. If you’re scared, be scared. All survivors are.” “Are you? Of the woman with the folder?” I took a calm drag on my cigarette, nodded slowly. “Me too,” said the girl.

I loved leaving everything behind, but you loved standing out on deck and watching Helsingborg appear on the horizon. The way home, the silhouette of something you recognized. You loved it.

“You never get your child’s attention back,” your mother once said. “The time when they don’t just listen to you to be nice, that time passes, it’s the first thing to go.”

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.”

You wiped the bar and sorted the glasses, and 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.