55 Miles to the Gas Pump and The Hand were two, great short stories, that viewed two types of caring and concern for ones partner and their relationship. In 55 Miles, the author showed the life of two partners whom were married, but the husband lived a secret life. In The Hand, the author portrayed the love between 2 newlyweds and how the wife is adapting to her husband’s creepy hand. Both stories show how the partner adapts to one another’s flaws. But if the stories were longer, I’m sure there are a few more parts in the story that were left out, to be told.
First, 55 Miles to the Gas Pump. This story is about a rancher and his wife, who have been married for over twelve years. It starts off with describing his physic and characteristics. Next, he is drunk and ready to jump off a cliff in a matter of seconds. “Rancher Croom at night galloping drunk over the dark plain, turning off at a place he knows to arrive at a canyon brink where he dismounts and looks down on tumbled rock, waits, then steps out, parting the air with his last roar, sleeves surging up windmill arms, jeans riding over boot tops, but before he hits he rises again to the top of the cliff like a cork in a bucket of milk.”(1) If the story were longer, I feel the author would go in to greater detail about his death, if he even died. It leaves us with, “but before he hits he rises again to the top of the cliff life a cork in a bucket.” Next I think the author would have added how the relationship between rancher Croom and the dead bodies in the attic were. It says in the second paragraph “just as she thought: the corpses of Mr. Croom's paramours - she recognizes them from their photographs in the paper: MISSING WOMAN” (2) I feel that the story is missing “why” he took these women and did whatever he did with them.
Last, is The Hand. This “short-short, short story” is about a woman who has feel in love with a supposed strangler whom she met one month prior