Summary

In "Snowflake," as the paramedics carried Sem's wife, Sanja, out of their apartment, she asked him to grab her shoes. He collected her white sneakers, and drove behind the ambulance in the rain.

At the hospital, the doctors asked Sanja a series of questions. When she told them she smoked "two or three cigarettes a day," Sem realized she had amnesia (122). She had quit smoking years ago when Sem had his heart attack.

In the days following, no matter how many times Sem told Sanja what had happened to her, she could not remember. The doctors discovered she had had a stroke. One night, she woke up and asked if her father had failed to come home because he was angry with her. She was reliving her childhood.

The first time Sem appreciated his name was in the hospital. Of all the...