Response to Before the Train and After

Reading this story, I didn't quite get the flow of the narrative. I initially thought the narrative was nonlinear. Reading along in class, I found the rhythm, which jumps out when you pay attention. Jeremy's injury could be a metaphor for an injured relationship, evident in Allison's affair with Jeremy's friend Paul. What struck me as interesting was the paragraph on page 169 when Allison and Paul begin fighting:

"What? What is it? What's wrong with you?"
"Jeremy's missing a hand," I say.
"Good God," Paul yells. "Why didn't somebody tell me?
He slides a cutting board across the counter. "Problem solved." He flattens his hand on the wood.
I stare at his long fingers.
"What? What are you waiting for? Let's get this over with so we can move on."
"I don't have a knife," I say.

Here is an interesting point of flux where Allison is realizing that Jeremy didn't lose anything with the hand but the hand itself. She's worried that perhaps his best feature is gone with the had. However, each encounter we see with Jeremy involves complete humor about his situation even up to the point of placing a foam finger where his hand used to be. He already came to terms with his situation while Allison was coping by having an affair with his musician friend. While Paul writes her a song, Jeremy 'pokes' fun at himself to cheer her up about HIS situation. Allison isn't the one who needs cheering up.

The idea I get from this work is the connection between Allison and Jeremy. While the romance between Allison and Paul is mainly physical or superficial, Allison and Jeremy seem to have a stronger bond that surpasses the injury to the point of Allison no longer considering Paul a substitute for Jeremy.