Jeffery Eugenides is the author of the novel The Virgin Suicides. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Yale Review and Granta.
Curious spirits, Eleanor says. I cannot discern that these spirits around you have a personal connection to you, by which I mean, I cannot discern the emotions common to relations and loved ones, like love or concern. These are spirits who you do not know. I don't know why they are gathered around you. Maybe they are just passing through and something about you has detained them for the hour, for the day.