Things My Son Needs to Know About The World: From the New York Times Bestselling Author of Anxious People and My Friends

by Fredrik Backman

Sometimes, when I was quite small, your grandpa and I would go out in the car together. Round, round, round we would drive. I don’t really know where we were going. Things needed picking up. Things needed dropping off. We never said all that much. We probably didn’t even talk much at all when I was small, your grandpa and I. And when I got older, I used to think those car trips must have been incredibly boring. We just sat there next to one another in silence and drove, you know? It was not until after you were born that I realized those were probably some of the very best moments of my childhood, for both me and your grandpa. Because they were ours. And when you’re all grown up, I guess it’ll be the memory of nights like this that I’ll hold most dear. I won’t remember the headaches and the swearing then. I’ll remember the trains. I’ll remember when you worked out how to open the freezer and sat inside your play tent throwing ice cubes at me when I tried to get you into bed. How you made me laugh so hard that my very bones sang when you wanted me to chase you, and we ran through the entire apartment and ended up with you hiding inside a suitcase in the wardrobe having no idea how to get back out again. And then, when I set you free, you dropped an ice cube inside my T-shirt for the very first time. Your expression then. That laugh. That’s what I’ll remember. Those hours were ours. And Raffe. The things you remember from a childhood. They really are the strangest of things.