Summary

In "The Skeleton of a Sparrow," Anja and Tenn stand facing each other in the restaurant of the Waldorf in the summer of 1982. For 30 minutes before he arrived, Anja had sat in the restaurant “searching her heart for the forgiveness she had narrowly convinced herself to show” (94). “Nineteen years had passed since Tenn had abandoned Frank to the desolate wards of Memorial Hospital … in that time, out of loyalty to Frank, in revenge for his desperation, she had erased Tenn from her life” (94). She had left Tenn’s letter with an invitation to lunch unopened for two days, before “curiosity got the better of her” (95). In his letter, Tenn had written that “every word of his Memoirs was true to the best of his recollection…Frankie’d kept him tied down to earth. Since Frankie, he’d been floating, flying blind, wandering willy-nilly. Everything...