Sunday, January 5, 2020

Too Close to See

I suggested an audiobook to my mother, to help us wile away the long hours in the hospital, and she agreed. "Ann Patchett has a new novel," I told her, "and the book is narrated by Tom Hanks."

"That sounds good," she said, and I promptly downloaded it to my phone, but we never had the chance to listen together. Later, when I was driving back and forth from the Cities to fetch first my brother, then my sister, then my aunt from the airport to my mom's side, I listened to the first few hours myself.

The Dutch House is a story of siblings devoted to each other through the loss of their parents, a tale perhaps so close to home that it wasn't until this afternoon, when I wept not at the ending, but because it was over, that I realized how resonant it was.

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