Personal Effects — Tom Casey

David Tobin, a psychiatrist, and Kathryn, his wife, an artist of merit, have perished in a mountain climbing accident. Their closest friend, the writer Jeffrey Stevens, has been asked by their attorney to perform the “discretionary duty” of going to their home and removing personal effects that “would be of no interest” in an estate sale. Jeffrey does this, and as he moves through familiar rooms he knew in happier times, “everything he saw was electric with that part of them not yet dead; everything he touched therefore, or rearranged…[subtracted] from the evidence of their having existed at all. The truth was he had been asked to further annihilate them.”
Through the prism of photographs, letters and journals he discovers, Jeffrey discerns a vibrant life of mind and spirit. There is also a manuscript detailing the sexual adventures of a patient in treatment with David, a woman, Devon Taylor, whom Jeffrey realizes he had dated in high school. Now divorced and living nearby, Jeffrey contacts Devon. They meet and discuss their loss. In the course of a single day each reflects on time and change, the fragile nature of life, the shock of untimely death, and precious memories that will continue to influence the hopeful possibilities remaining as the living moment continues to unfold.