Preview of Dream Children Summary:

Expressed as a directive, a major theme of this story is "Measure a person by his or her sense of loss." The young wife whose infant was stillborn is utterly transformed by the tragedy, going off on a new life course which is largely regulated by her ongoing need to penetrate by whatever means the unbreachable time-space wall of human existence and, in defiance of all logic, reason, and conventional wisdom, to be reunited with her lost baby son. Her husband, clearly not needing replacement therapy comparable with hers, reconstructs his life in the most convenient and thoughtful fashion he can manage. That is, by expressing concern for his wife's health and mental state, acting as her caregiver—so to speak—when he is home on weekends from his TV work in the city, and acting as another kind of husband during the week: a shadow...