And yet. How is it that, despite all, the idea of another life persists? How is it that after all the ways he failed her, after all the effort with which she has tried to deafen herself to that history, the heart-boom of a first touch, forty-five years before, can echo even still?
Another life, one in which their love would have been enough, one in which their words would not have failed them.
Maybe it is true that sometimes, and only for moments, that other life had been theirs.
My grandmother closes the door to the Franklin stove, and the embers inflame. Within moments there is nothing left of my grandfather’s pages, nothing at all.
Outside, treading the tepid lake water with my mother and brother, I notice that the chimney has started smoking again. I wonder about the fire, what my grandmother has burned, and why.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
STEFAN MERRILL BLOCK was born in 1982 and grew up in Plano, Texas. He is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis. His first novel, The Story of Forgetting, was an international bestseller, won the Texas Book Award, and was a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Award and the Indies Choice Book Award. He lives in Brooklyn.
www.stefanmerrillblock.com
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