Abide with Me

by Elizabeth Strout

Understand—the inland reaches of northern New England, with its quick, hot summers, and long, dark winters, had bred for generations a way of life that had at its center the need to endure. A child slipping on an icy driveway, banging his chin against the car door, would most likely be told, “Grit your teeth and bear it,” even when one of the teeth had, as in the case of Toby Dunlop, gone straight through the lower lip, poking out the other side. No trip to the doctor was needed. “You’ll live,” he was told, and he did—bearing a small white scar that he never showed anyone except his first girlfriend. If the men were not especially talkative, their fathers had not been, either. If the women cooked meals that might seem, to someone from other parts, flavorless and straightforward, it is because they cooked what was available to them: chicken, potatoes, canned corn. And if their children were not allowed Novocain when having their cavities drilled, it was not cold-heartedness but a belief that life was a struggle, character honed every step of the way.