Part I: The Return

"The Daffodil Sky" opens with the story's nameless protagonist arriving by train in an unnamed town. A sign forbidding entry to a footbridge that he used to walk across suggests to him that the town has changed since he was last there. His sense that things have changed is confirmed when he enters a pub that he once frequented and finds a new pinball machine and no familiar faces. Falling into conversation with the barman, the protagonist asks about Cora Whitehead, a woman whom he met when he was twenty-two and who used to frequent the pub. The barman does not know Cora. His repeated response to the protagonist's comments about Cora's occupation and her acquaintances is that it has "been a minute"—that is, a very long time—since any of this information could be veri- fied. One of the patrons...