Jhumpa Lahiri tells us how a father (the narrator of her short story "P's Parties") misses his son, a son described by the father as "a grown man, a college graduate, a few months into his new life abroad, pursuing further studies at a foreign university."
The father muses on his wife's joyful acceptance of their son moving successfully into his adult years. For his wife, the narrator says,
the fact that he was getting by on his own for the most part, and now had a woman in his life, and was far from us, was a much deserved and happy ending to our long and exhausting road as parents. It meant that we’d done a good job, and this was a milestone worth celebrating.
The father was not as sanguine. Lahiri has him say,
...For me, not seeing him every day, not hearing his voice around the house, or even his mediocre violin playing, not knowing what he was up to, not adding his favorite juice to the grocery cart—it all came as a blow. I was proud of him, yes, I was excited about his prospects, but I still had a hole in my heart.
painting: Rebecca Lemov
