Summary
The titular story from Alice Munro’s 1983 short story collection, The Moons of Jupiter, opens “on the eighth floor of Toronto General Hospital.” The narrator, Janet—a middle-aged writer and divorced mother of two—visits her ailing father in the “heart wing.” She had brought him there the night before, only to learn that one of the valves of his heart had deteriorated so completely that, without an operation, he would die within three months.
As Janet copes with this knowledge, she discusses options with her father. Despite the fragile state of his heart, he appears to decide against the operation, as death seems more natural to him. Janet seems to agree with his choice, for it aligns better with the image of her father she has built up in her mind. She stresses “his independence, his self-sufficiency, his forbearance” while rejecting the traits that disrupt her constructed view of him. Snippets of internal monologue and memory are interspersed throughout their conversation, allowing readers to learn more about the narrator’s life and her complex familial relationships.
She recalls how, two days prior, her younger daughter, Judith, met her at the Toronto airport. As Judith, accompanied by her boyfriend, Don, greets her, Janet asks after her oldest daughter, Nichola. A tense conversation ensues, indicating the quiet conflict between the wild older daughter who is currently “incommunicado,” the reliable younger daughter who feels neglected by her mother, and the mother who struggles with her inability to understand her now-adult children. Realizing that she is only privy to certain facets of her daughters’ lives and personalities, she grows irritated with Don, as he likely knows more about her family, their complex, often contentious relationships, and their past than she might prefer.
Janet’s criticism is hypocritical, as she recalls having similar thoughts as a young adult, describing how she and her friends would discuss their families and their lives, how they “filed them away, defined them beyond any possibility of change.” With a clarity wrought by time, distance, and experience, she now calls this “presumption.” She reflects on a comment her father once made, offhandedly calling the years of her childhood “a blur.” At the time, the comment stung; now, as a mother, she realizes the disjoint between the shared memories of parent and child, one recalling hazy themes while the other remembers with stunning clarity. It is a cyclical repetition, and she sees herself reprising the challenges she faces in her relationship with her father in her relationships with her children.
Fed up with her complex family dynamic, she calls an old lover, but the phone goes to voicemail. She calls her father, only to learn that he is returning to the Toronto emergency room for a second opinion. He decides to go forward with surgery despite the risk his age poses, and Janet wonders whether he makes this gamble out of regret of his fearful, safe way of living life. Returning to his room after speaking to the head nurse, Janet is greeted by her father, who recites from memory the opening stanza of Joaquin Miller’s “Columbus.”
He seems to be in a whimsical mood, speaking of the soul, of memory, and of people’s near-misses with death as recorded in the tabloids. Quickly, he transitions away from these more fanciful topics, dismissing them entirely to discuss logistics such as “his will, the house, the cemetery plot.” Just as soon, their conversation shifts to family. Janet asks if he would like her to notify her siblings—his other children. Despite his poor health, he chooses not to worry them or disrupt their busy...
(This entire section contains 1127 words.)
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lives.
As they discuss, the narrative returns to Janet’s internal monologue, as readers learn that her father’s relationship with his children is one of quiet pride concealed beneath comedy and mild condescension. He comments on Janet’s relationship with her own children and criticizes her divorce from her ex-husband, Richard, and Janet disguises her anger by looking out the window. She turns back toward him, a retort ready on her tongue; however, she notices his heart rate on the nearby screen and stops. Illness has disrupted the familiar flow of their interaction; shortly after, she leaves.
The next day, Janet does not return to the hospital, for her father is preoccupied with tests to “prepare for the operation.” Instead, she meanders the “Bloor Street dress shops” to try things on. Gazing around at the people before her, she wonders what it might take to transform herself and her life. She acknowledges that this fixation is little more than an obsession instigated by her struggle with her lack of control over her father’s choices and his inevitable death, but she tries the dresses on anyway.
Somewhat coldly, she recalls an instance, years since past, when her oldest daughter, Nichola, was sick with what doctors briefly thought was leukemia. She recalls similar actions: leaving her daughters with a babysitter, shopping for dresses, buying a scandalous gown, and hardening herself to the emotional pain of what having a daughter with terminal leukemia might look like. Too, she describes how love might be “maintained” for a “condemned person” but notes its alteration; there is a reservation, a withdrawal of self in the name of protection, that must occur. Though Nichola did not have leukemia, Janet’s past realizations come bubbling to the surface of the present, and she aimlessly visits a planetarium.
After the planetarium show ends, she returns to the hospital and describes it to her father. He begins to recite facts from memory, then, at Janet’s prompting, names the moons of Jupiter and tells the story of their mythological names. As he does, the “loudspeaker” announces that visiting hours are over. Janet leaves, knowing she will not see her father until after the operation, though she is uncertain if she will ever see him again. In this moment of finality, Janet recalls a scene from just hours prior. Just after the planetarium show, she walked through a Chinese garden and sat on a bench. Watching people as they came and went, she thought of Nichola and of her father. She made peace with their decisions and accepted a passive, secondary role in their lives. Their choices are their own; there is little else she can do.
The story ends as she heads back to the hospital, picking back up at the moment of goodbye—perhaps for a time but perhaps forever—between father and daughter. Janet remembers the stone relief carvings on the garden’s tombs; she had always wanted to look at them and consider their details up close, but she never has. In this moment of regret and desire, the story ends.
