The Refugees

at strangers and acquaintances sometimes did

Smiling at your relatives never got you very far, but smiling

She wondered what, if anything, she knew about love. Not much, perhaps, but enough to know that what she would do for him now she would do again tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. She would read out loud, from the beginning. She would read with measured breath, to the very end. She would read as if every letter counted, page by page and word by word.

Yeah, right. Candid. It means being caught by surprise, like in a photograph or a film, when someone takes your picture and you’re not looking. Or it means someone who’s frank. Who’s honest and direct.

He rubbed the envelope between his fingers, unable to explain how he’d dreaded the letter’s arrival as much as he’d yearned for it.

He tried to forget what he’d discovered, how little other lives mattered to him when his own was at stake.

The dead move on,” he had said, coiled in his armchair, hands between his thighs. “But the living, we just stay here.”

He’d never before bought flowers of any sort, preferring to surprise her with more enduring presents, like the books he gave her every now and again, on topics like how to make friends and influence people, or income tax preparation.

For his part, Arthur had no idea. He had trouble distinguishing one nationality of Asian names from another. He was also afflicted with a related, and very common, astigmatism wherein all Asians appeared the same.

“You aren’t afraid of the things you believe in,” he said.