Summary

In “The Light Will Pour In,” an unnamed male narrator recalls traveling across the country with his much younger girlfriend, Trish, by bus. They quarreled frequently, but always ended up resolving their differences. They checked into a motel, and the man at the front desk mistook Trish for the narrator's daughter. Trish made judgmental remarks about the hotel room, and about the restaurant where the narrator suggested they get dinner. He looked at her arms, noticing they were covered in bruises he had inflicted on her, while his own arms were covered in scratch marks she had given him. Trish and the narrator met in church; she sang in the choir, he attended with his wife and child. Trish got in the shower and began singing, and the narrator felt vaguely unsettled. This, he realizes in retrospect...