Finished the first story. Return to the Lucy Barton story. MC has his barn burn down. He loses everything and becomes school janitor. Meets up with young Barton girl, befriends her (sort of). Now she is a successful author, though back then she was a battered child. MC goes out to visit her brother. He learns that perhaps the elder Barton burned down his barn, killed his cows, etc. out of spite for having been caught masturbating, and also out of PTSS from WWII concentration camps. MC has never told anyone that he felt God spoke to him on the night of the fire, telling him to value his family and people over all. Now he tells Barton this . . . and is immediately doubted. O'Henry ending, almost. For years he wouldn't tell anyone of his religious experience; it was his secret. Now he has told his wife and the Barton son about it . . . but he no longer believes that God spoke to him. His lack of faith becomes his new secret.
PUPPY Dysfunctional family has puppy that they need to get rid of. Mom places ad; family is coming over. Description of family. Mom: husband changed from long-haired attractive to stooped old man. Husband: talks constantly of living on a farm and doing what needs to be done, though he never lived on a farm. Conversations together: Sell and move to Arizona, get hooked on phonics for kids, buying a car wash. . . wonderful randomness. Straight-laced suburbanite comes to look at puppy. Seems like she will buy it, even though she is repelled by house. (Dog turds on carpet, filthy.) She is proud of how accepting she is until she looks out window and sees white trash's son tied by harness to a tree. Reader knows he is a menace to himself, darting across I-90, for example. Suburban mother beats hasty retreat, leaving dog to be (probably) drowned by dad who does what has to be done. Suburbanite remembers her own pathetic ch...
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