French Exit

set her mind at ease

we strive for grace

He didn’t take the notion of God seriously but couldn’t deny the feeling of beatitude he knew
when he sat in a church pew. He attributed this to aesthetics; he wasn’t conflicted about it

He drank, at times to excess, but there was nothing dark about it; he was looking not to kill a thought but to reset the clock, to force an occurrence

His speedy acceptance of her as his lifelong mate was suspicious; he selected her as if off a rack

Certain of their days were devoted to her unanswerable auto-queries relating to the mean stupidity of existence, the fallibility of romantic love, her suspicion that dissatisfaction and shortcoming were constants of the human condition

Frances sniffed the flowers and asked, “Who has died, and what was their purpose, and did they fulfill their potential?”