Cathedral

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I read Cathedral for my book club this week. I had read What We Talk About When We Talk About Love for fifty-two, and I was happy to read more short stories by Raymond Carver. While reading "A Small, Good Thing," I realized that the same story was in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (titled "The Bath"), but the new version in Cathedral was longer, and so much more beautiful. It ended with hope and strength, and I was so happy that there was more to the story.
These quotes are from "Fever," a story about a man caring for his two children after his wife had left them.

He shook his head. That seemed the saddest thing of all to him now--that whatever they did from now on, each would do it without the other.

It was then, as he stood at the window, that he felt something come to an end. It had to do with Eileen and the life before this. Had he ever waved at her? He must have, of course, he knew he had, yet he could not remember just now. But he understood it was over, and he felt able to let her go. He was sure their life together had happened in the way he said it had. But it was something that had passed. And that passing--though it had seemed impossible and he'd fought against it--would become a part of him now, too, as surely as anything else he'd left behind.