In this story by Ann Beattie, a troubled couple who have travelled from New York to Virginia each year to visit a free-spirited friend and his brother on his birthday, make the trip once more on the birthday following his death. The trip is ostensibly to comfort the friend’s brother. Ironically, although each of them clearly loved the dead man and is in need of closure, they suppress their feelings and do not even talk about him. Themes include friendship, the burdens and unpredictability of life and death, death as relief from suffering, grief and mourning.
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