"These Short, Dark Days" by Alice McDermott

This story can be found in the August 24, 2015 issue of The New Yorker. 

First Line: "February 3rd was a dark and dank day: cold, spitting rain all morning and a low, steel-gray sky in the afternoon."

Last Line: "When her young father, a motorman for the B.R.T. whose grave she never found, send her mother to do the shopping while he had himself a little nap."

I am working on another project  right now, so I cannot take the time to pour accolades on this story.  But I wanted to share it.  

The visual imagery is bar-none and the examination of the ironies of power is a pleasure to read.  Alice McDermott's craft is perceptive and sentient.  Something happens - sad, to be sure - but this event spurs the very human nun into action, trying to weave a miracle despite the rules that hold her back.

This is a masterful piece.

Photo credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/78/McDermott.JPG/200px-McDermott.JPG