Benjamin lives alone with his mother. The apartment in the settlement by the lake is small, and he can't have the dog he would like. When he tells Joachim about it, Joachim wants to get one as a gift, preferably two, but Benjamin thinks dogs are almost like people and not something to be given as a present. One day, Benjamin meets Mr. Agostini, an old man from the neighborhood, who has always wanted a dog too. In the past, when his wife moved to a nursing home after a fall, he didn't have one. Now he finally has a dog named Hemingway. But Mr. Agostini is not in good shape anymore, and he doesn't know what will happen to "Hem." Similarly, Karin would like to know who will take care of her dog if something happens to her, as she says. Karin is sick; she is in pain, and no one knows about it. At the hardware store, she buys a ladder and borrows a drill from her neighbor. Eva Schmidt listens in on the conversation.