Stoner

by John Williams

Deep in him, beneath his memory, was the knowledge of hardship and hunger and endurance and pain.

she drank secretly, out of some obscure and distant sorrow;

After the brief period of her last assault upon Stoner, which flared with a final, desperate intensity, she wandered like a ghost into the privacy of herself, a place from which she never fully emerged. She

He did not allow himself the easy luxury of guilt;

and as the night wore on, the lines in her face eased, she grew calm and younger, and the two of them talked as they had not been able to talk for years.

And Stoner came to realize that she was, as she had said, almost happy with her despair; she would live her days out quietly, drinking a little more, year by year, numbing herself against the nothingness her life had become. He was glad she had that, at least; he was grateful that she could drink.

“I’ll wait for a couple of weeks.

He takes death with surprising ease; i guess, death has become so customary even his own doesn't seem to fade him; he was dead before he knew

They had forgiven themselves for the harm they had done each other, and they were rapt in a regard of what their life together might have been.

but Stoner knew that in that instant Gordon Finch had withdrawn from him in such a way that he could never return.

He had wanted love; and he had had love, and had relinquished it, had let it go into the chaos of potentiality.

The dying are selfish, he thought; they want their moments to themselves, like children.