Anastasia Krupnik

Anastasia laments that she doesn’t have memories because nothing interesting ever happens to her. She asks her mother if she has interesting memories, and Anastasia’s mom tells about a love affair she had before she married her husband. Years ago when she was in art school, she took up with a lawyer, and the two had wild romantic experiences, such as jetting off to South Carolina for a week. While they were there, Anastasia’s mother realized he didn’t love her like she loved him, which made her sad. Next, Anastasia asks her father about past love affairs. He claims he had a lot because he’s a poet.

At Christmas, Anastasia asks her grandmother to tell her about her grandfather when he was young. Anastasia’s grandmother excitedly relays a story of the time she made him a shirt for his birthday and surprised him with it. Suddenly, her grandmother wants to go home and be with Sam. Anastasia wishes her grandmother a Merry Christmas before her father brings her grandmother back to her nursing home, and Anastasia thinks it’s “funny how it had never felt sad to say Merry Christmas before” (86).