Anxious People: Chapter 68 Summary & Analysis

On the back steps of the police station, Estelle hugs everyone but Zara (who blocks her attempt). Julia invites Estelle to have coffee with them, but Estelle refuses. She tells the agent she doesn’t want to sell, and the agent says that’s lovely. Lennart says all the apartments not for sale are pretty romantic. Estelle is thrilled: she’s going to be neighbors with Julia and Ro, and she and Julia will swap books. She already knows what to give Julia first.

In the following weeks and months, Ro will lose her dad. Ro’s mom will find a reason to live in another man: Julia and Ro’s son. Ro and Julia will remain quirky, and the monkey and the frog will visit them every day and love them. Julia and Ro will argue and make up, and they’re always better at making up than at fighting.

Back in the present, Zara hurries off the steps to avoid more hugs. Lennart follows her and asks if she’d like to share a taxi. Zara has never shared a taxi in her life, but she tells Lennart he can sit in the front. Anna-Lena is still sitting on the steps, and Roger sits down next to her. She wants to apologize, but it’s hard. Instead, she suggests they go to IKEA and look at the countertop he’s interested in. Roger mumbles that maybe they could go see a movie instead. They hold hands in the theater. It feels like “coming home” for Anna-Lena, and like “being good enough” for Roger.

Estelle walks back home and calls her daughter to tell her not to worry about the apartment. Estelle is going to have to give up smoking, because a young woman (the robber) is moving in and won’t let her smoke in the closet. Really, the woman is renting the apartment from Estelle’s daughter while Estelle rents a bedroom for the full 6,500 kroner. There’s a drawing of a monkey, a frog, and an elk on the fridge, which Estelle stole from Jim. This family watches fireworks from the balcony every New Year’s Eve until, finally, Estelle dies. Ro, Julia, and their son attend her funeral, and as teens, the monkey and the frog smoke in the closet. And in a basement storage area where the bank robber once slept, a would-be bank robber can’t rob a bank because someone stole his pistol.