The narrator reflects on failing as a father, contrasting his values—development, legacy, and strength—with his son’s embrace of history and contentment. Last autumn, when the narrator turned 45, his 20-year-old son called to say that he had taken a bartending job at Vinylbaren and invited his father for smørrebrød, recalling their Christmas ferry trips to Denmark. The narrator remembers loving the departure from the city, while his son loved seeing Helsingborg reappear on the return journey. The narrator recalls watching his son work from his car outside the bar the previous autumn, but he stayed away. He was drunk, recently diagnosed with cancer, and unwilling to face his son’s compassion. It reminded him of all the times he had failed to appear, leaving his son waiting on the steps.

The narrator remembers their last ferry trip when his son was 14. He taught his son poker in a Helsingør bar. The son won 600 kronor and said it was enough despite the narrator’s desire to continue. He used the winnings to buy earrings for his mother, and he never played poker again. The narrator concludes that he tried to make his son tough, but he turned out kind instead.

The narrator describes the previous night at the hospital when he confronted the woman carrying her folder. She was offended when he referred to her as “death” and clarified that she only handles picking up and dropping off. She admitted that he had always been her favorite—an attachment formed when she took his infant brother years ago and broke protocol by looking into the narrator’s eyes, which caused her pain. She denied knowing the future or choosing his brother over him. She assured the narrator that he did not kill his brother.

The narrator reflects that when he first received his cancer diagnosis, he tallied his professional accomplishments rather than his happiness. He recalls seeing joyful dogs playing on the beach at Råå and wonders whether he’s ever felt joy like that.

The narrator returns to his conversation with the woman in the hospital corridor, when she admitted that she knits as a hobby and gestured to her gray sweater. When the narrator told her that he was ready to die, she revealed that she wasn’t there for him. She told him that he would learn tomorrow that he is healthy. The news devastated the narrator, who trembled and sobbed, having prepared himself for death. The woman walked to the girl’s room instead, opening her folder and crossing out a name with a black pencil.

The narrator recalls a moment two days prior when he overheard the girl and her mother playing a game where the girl transformed her impending surgery into an adventure with aliens on a spaceship, comforting her crying mother.

Realizing that he wanted to save the child, the narrator shoved the woman, stole the folder, and fled. Outside, he deliberately crashed his car into a truck on the road. The woman pulled him from the wreckage. The narrator asked to die in the girl’s place, but she explained that the exchange requires a life for a life, not a death for a death—the deal will require his complete erasure from existence. His son would have had a different father, his accomplishments would be attributed to others, and no one would remember him.

As the narrator considered the deal, the woman brought him to Hamntorget to watch his son through the window and understand what he would lose. To ensure his certainty, she walked them into the bar and drank beer while the son served his father coffee. Their hands touched as the son took the cup, and the narrator felt his heartbeat. The son, mistaking the woman for a romantic partner, quietly told his father that he was glad he found someone his own age and then kissed his cheek and wished him a “Merry Christmas.” The narrator decided that this moment justified the sacrifice.

Outside, the woman explained that they would jump inward and that it would hurt. She clarified that his feeling would not be fear but grief for lost time. His son would not remember him, though he may briefly sense that something is missing. The girl would live, and the woman promised to watch over both. She gave the narrator gray knitted gloves, carefully cutting away a loose red thread.

While holding hands, they jumped inward. As erasure took hold, the narrator saw Helsingborg as his son always had—as a home—and found it “good enough.” His final words of the unread letter to his son say that it’s Christmas Eve morning and that he loved him.