"Year's End"

Winter Fiction Issue
"Year's End"
(not available online)
by Jhumpa Lahiri

Rating: 8.3


Short story about an Indian college student whose mother has died and whose father has remarried a young widow named Chitra who has two small daughters. He takes them to Dunkin' Donuts.

... "New roads to explore." And, without our having to say it, I knew we were both thankful to Chitra for chafing under whatever lingered of my mother's spirit in the place she had last called home and for forcing us to shut its doors. ♦