Summary

In “The Things They Left Behind,” Scott Staley, the narrator, tells his reader that the things they left behind showed up in his apartment in August 2002. He connects the arrival of the things with his act of helping Paula Robeson with her air conditioner. While he was helping her he told her he had recently transferred jobs from rural insurance to research. He did not tell her he was trying to forget everything he had ever known about rural insurance or the faces of the two dozen people with whom he once worked.

About a week about Scott fixed Paula’s air conditioner, he arrived at his apartment to find a pair of distinctive sunglasses on a table in the foyer. Scott felt both horrified shame and the sense that he had been caught. He tried to convince himself the...