NARRATOR: During the course of Jennie's sickness Max was witness to the gradual disintegration of her corporeal and mental being; at her death she was as unrecognizable to her family as they were to her. Once Max returned to Florida, now physically separated from his family, he was finally freed to think about her as she once was, and perhaps to truly become aware of the gap in his life.

One of the most apparent difficulties Max had to contend with after Jennie's death was the simple and yet essential routines of daily living. When she was alive their roles were sharply delineated; she fed, disciplined and worried over the family, he clothed them and kept the peace. She was a Jewish housewife to the core; after fifty-two years the adaptation to self-sufficiency was immensely difficult for Max. But in his characteristic technique of rationalizing, he generalized his hardships under the expansive category of "old age." I'm certain, however, that his indecisiveness had as much to do with his sense of loss as it did with old age.