The story is about Mr. Smart, the director of the only funeral home where he lives. His works apparently kept him very busy and he took his job seriously so that he could provide for he and his wife, Clara. The beginning opens up with him leaving for a job as his wife warns him of the icy roads, to which he gives an irritable response. It immediately jumps back to the point in the story that causes the major conflict. Mr. Smart finds a message to his wife that leads him to believe that she is cheating on him. He is understandably upset but his wife avoids the confrontation by saying it was only a family member. He doesn’t pursue the matter any further as he is called on a job. Clara sees him off, worried about how distraught her husband is. She awaits his call but when she is called she is informed that her husband had hit a tree.
I liked how you got into the characters’ heads with thoughts often. It seemed to me like you were showing a rage that Mr. Smart kept bottled in. His thoughts seemed to be things he wanted to say but chose not to while what he actually said was more of a toned down version of it though he still sounded irritable.
I didn’t feel as though there was a clear cut resolution to this story. The husband ended up dying in the end, which didn’t feel surprising. I would have actually liked to see more confrontation between the two about the text message he finds on Clara’s phone rather than him just driving off and dying in a car accident. Also, instead of just telling us she’s “frisky” in one paragraph, why not use a flashback to show it and to foreshadow her supposed fickle nature.
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