I'm speculating that Jenny Offill taught in the dept. where my brother
was head of Creative Writing. I could ask him but we don't really talk.
We don't talk about why we don't really talk either.

What Tolstoy says, "Happy families are all alike." There's a blandness
in the beginning but digitized--there are gaps between the sentences. Why don't
Buddhists vacuum in the corners? No attachments. And all those astronaut
facts, none of which I can remember right now. But later it turns on
you. Now I remember the angry dying cosmonaut. The turning occurs during one of the gaps so you never see it happen. Me
and you become the husband and the wife. Bed bugs show up but they're
only the outer manifestation. But it's the ordinariness of it all,
suitable for a listicle.

How can the kindest person do this? It must be just a different kind of
kindness, focused elsewhere. The universe is vast. Pluto is no longer
a planet, yet life goes on just the same. Between attention! and
attention! there is inattention. You can miss a new diningroom table.
You must have known it was there. How could you not have known?

What John Lennon says, "Life is what happens when you're busy making
other plans." When you write the meeting of the two women, the
interesting part is the lead up to the encounter. With all the science,
do we know what's going to happen? Everyone has their certainties. The
lady in the park says Blue Jays spend every Friday with the Devil.

I'm speculating that they work it out in the end. My evidence: The
husband is called "you" again. Maybe because he slipped his story of
their lives into the pile she's grading.