#275 Heaven Row- Jess Lake
A widower raises his two teenage daughters by himself. As he
struggles with parenthood he remembers the risks he took halfway across the
world, and the path that lead him here.
The writing here is absolutely stunning. Lake captures the
empty, frustrating feelings of a lonely father exceptionally well. A man who’s
life is draining away fast, and all he has left are his memories and his
children, who at this moment it time, won't give him the time of day.
“But when I sit next to them…and no one says a word, I have
a feeling I can’t easily describe. It’s as if my heart has puffed up inside mu
chest like a balloon, and every beat presses against my ribs, like the thump of
a muffled drum. It’s nothing, my doctor says, but he’s wrong. That beat is the
sound of time passing.”
Time is a big theme in this story.
“In my study there are stacks of papers to grade, books I
should have read and reviewed months ago, but I have no concentration: the time
slips through my fingers like water. I whisper my daughter’s names to the air
and say, Listen. Listen to me.”
Notable Passage: “A pardon is a little space, an opening,
where the world stands back and leaves you alone. It is a door I walk through
every day when I open my eyes.”
Heaven Lake by Jess Row.
ReplyDeleteGreat story.