#513 Pool Night- Amy Hempel

#513 Pool Night- Amy Hempel

I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain. This is a story about a family's loss, regret, and time. They have experienced a house fire and a flood.

“When the wires touched the water, that part of town went black. This was the thing we watched—the city going dark along the path of the flood…It was not supposed to reach us…and then it did.”

Nobody thinks tragedy will happen to them. Now that it has, they look for answers and memories in a photo book, the one they still have. Each person has their own view of time:

-What I lose will always be lost.

-His problem is the past…he says only do things you have done before and liked.

-I thought the present was the safer bet.

-We can only die in the future…right now we are always alive.

-I made those seconds live.

Fire and water, some things we cannot control, but some we can.

Rating: 8-7-7-8 Total= 30

#396 Single, Carefree, Mellow- Katherine Heiny

#396 Single, Carefree, Mellow- Katherine Heiny

This story is about loss, dependence, love, worth. Maya knows that her dog is dying, and she also knows that her relationship should probably end soon, maybe. It’s a battle in her mind between the unconditional love of a dog and the complicated love between humans.

This is a no fault story, there is no antagonist, just the thoughts of Maya. We root for her to find that something that will settle het mind down. We don’t know, as readers either whether she should break up with her boyfriend. They seem somewhat happy, he is good to her, his family loves her. It’s a struggle we all deal with, is there such a thing as unconditional love?

One thing I found really interesting was this litmus test idea below, it’ll stick with me. I’m not sure if I know what my defining story is.

“Maya had a theory that everyone had a story that somehow defined them, both the good and the bad, and that these stories should be shared early on in relationships. If the other person appreciated the story, that meant you should proceed with the relationship, and if the other person failed to understand the depth of the story, or were judgmental, then there was basically no point in further contact.”

#393 Her Odor First- Antonio Ruiz-Camacho

#393 Her Odor First- Antonio Ruiz-Camacho

Death, family, regret, love. This is a sort of elegy. A spirit lingers in her house. He grandson, “her baby” is the last one left in the house. He is left to take care of her affairs, and he must sift through the boxes she left behind. She is still hanging on to the life she had, and wants to reach out and comfort him, but she can’t.

“My baby senses me as I’m coming out of the closet and he looks around, chasing my presence. He knows I’m here, we remain connected. But I can’t meet his cornered-bull eyes. I can’t touch his sagging face. From this distance forced upon us by my fate, I can’t sooth him. I can’t caress his reddened cheeks and bring relief to his expression, wet, drunk, full of angst. I’ve never seen my baby like this before, and for once I’m glad he can’t see me either.”

Rating: 7-7-8-7 Total= 29

#391 A Temporary Matter- Jhumpa Lahiri

#391 A Temporary Matter- Jhumpa Lahiri

Shukumar and Shoba were struggling with their marriage. He was working on a dissertation and she was working to support both of them. They were still mourning the loss of their prematurely born child. They lived together, but were still very much apart.

“Instead he thought of how he and Shoba had become experts at avoiding each other in their three-bedroom house, spending as much time on separate floors as possible…He thought of how long it had been since she looked into his eyes and smiled, or whispered his name on those rare occasions they still reached for each other’s bodies before sleeping.”

They got a notice that for the next five days the electricity would be turned off for an hour each night to manage repairs. Those nights where they ate over candlelight, a forced setting of intimacy, they seemed to work on their own repairs. They were more truthful on those nights, in the dark then they had ever been with each other. Some things cant be fixed, some things shouldn’t be said.

This story comes on strong at the end, like a sudden wave in a reflecting pool; emotional, heavy, heartbreaking.

Rating: 10-8-9-9 Total= 36

#373 Do Something- Kate Walbert

#373 Do Something- Kate Walbert

Margaret is tired of the approximations in life, she needs to do something real. She is overwhelmed by anger, by idleness, by the futility of fighting against the large problems of the world; war, death, 9/11.

“Now she is blindsided by fury; the tide of her anger rising at certain unpredictable moments…as if drawn by an internal moon, waxing and waning, though mostly waning.”

Since the beginning of the war, the government has not allowed pictures of dead soldiers coming home at Dover Air Force Base. So, she has been standing outside with her camera, taking her own stand for truth and justice. Most times she is warned and she goes away, or she accepts a small fine. However, now at her tipping point she decides to utter the most empowering phrase in social activism:

“Today…I plan to resist.”

Her family doesn’t support this action, especially at her age; Her adult daughter raising her own children in particular:

“Not so long ago Caroline would have stood beside her at the fence, that her daughter would have carried a sign or at least shouted an obscenity. But this was before Caroline took that job in the Financial District.”

Powerlessness is a strong emotion.

Rating: 8-8-8-8 Total= 32

#317 Compassion-Dorothy Allison

#317 Compassion-Dorothy Allison

This is an extremely sad story about three sisters dealing with an infirmed mother suffering with cancer.  The sister’s don’t get along with each other. We learn that they had an abusive father, and the mother has been battling her disease for a couple of decades.

Allison does a great job with the personality traits of three siblings: the oldest is the responsible more serious one, the middle child is the black sheep with the chip on her shoulders, and the youngest tries to be the peacekeeper.

There is perhaps too much in this story that might not need to be in there, but I think the author was writing from place of her own life. Sometimes a writer tells a story because they need to get something down on paper. It seems very personal.

Allison said about this piece: “I wanted to find a way to talk about how embattled families occasionally act with unexpected grace.” She certainly accomplished that here.

Rating: 8-7-8-10 Total= 33