All of which reminded me how irritated my friend used to get when other people insisted that, although her daughter never showed her love, it had to be there. (All children love their mothers: everyone knows that.)

Group therapy made her feel the opposite of supported, my friend said. It made her feel alien. After the meeting at which this woman had told her story, my friend said she’d had enough. She never went back.

And later, when I heard that this woman had died, I felt all that anger surging up again, she said. It seemed so terribly wrong, the way her feelings had been denied, how none of us had come up with a single thing to say that might have been of any real help or comfort to her. Sick with shame was how my friend described what she felt whenever she thought of this woman now. And I kept wondering, she said, if there ever came a time before the end when someone actually saw this woman. Saw her.

This is the saddest story I have ever heard.

About this woman I myself am wondering: Did there ever come a time before the end when she changed her mind and confronted her husband after all?

—

What do you think is the meaning of your life?

“Family.”

“Love.”

“Doing the right thing.”

“Being a good person.”

“Staying positive and following your dream.”

The meaning of life is that it stops. Of course it would have been a writer who came up with the answer. Of course that writer would have been Kafka.

But in your own words, the social worker says.

Those are my words. I’m agreeing with Kafka.

But the question is what is the meaning of your life.

That it stops, my friend says. Just like Kafka said. (Brittle little laugh.)

—

My wife and I have lived a long time, the owner of the house told me. And believe me, we’re no strangers to tragedy. One of our children died of meningitis when she was just a tiny thing. At our age we’ve seen many of our friends and relatives pass, and, between the two of us, we’ve been through a few serious illnesses ourselves. A flooded house is not the worst thing in the world that can happen. If it’s the worst thing that happens this year, I’ll count myself lucky. That’s the risk you take when you rent out your home, and of course that’s why we have insurance. And it’s a blessing that it wasn’t the upstairs bath, in which case the damage would’ve been much worse.