#771 The Afterlife- Amy Hempel
A girl relates what life is like for her father after her mother dies. “He was kind, cultured, youthful, and good-looking.” This had woman of all sorts coming to visit and making all sorts of plays for her dad. She saw through all of it with childhood insight. He spent a good deal of time with one woman in particular that she liked, but sometimes a spouse left behind just can’t move on.
“She understood that my father’s life had ended with my mother’s death, and that what he inhabited now was a kind of afterlife—not dead, but not alive to possibility.”
This story is the kind delicate and flowing short story that we expect from Amy Hempel.
Notable Passage: “That’s the trouble with people in general—you have to run into them.”
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