So Late in the Day

“That was the problem with women falling out of love; the veil of romance fell away from their eyes, and they looked in and could read you.”

This short little story captures the point of view of this man trying to come to terms with the fact her fiancee had changed her mind about marrying him. We get glimpses of the past, how he asked her to move in with and marry him, only to find the reality of it less than desirable. It's a story about misogyny, the reconciliation between the idealized version of what a woman can do for you and what they need from you; it's also about how small comments (said and unsaid) can have such a huge impact in how another person sees you and what you mean to them. Because you're seeing this from his POV, you also get a glimpse at the stories he tells himself to make sense of what happened, to shift the blame away from him.

Claire Keegan is a master at exploring topics in a subtle way in a very short amount of pages. This is certainly worth a read.