Their own way of life was so much debris all around them, but since they were no longer in their prime that hardly mattered. Once it would have, Odo reflected now; Charlotte had known that years ago.  Their love of each other had survived the vicissitudes and the struggle there had been; not even the bleakness of the day had passed could affect it.

They didn’t mention their son as they made their rounds of the garden that was now too much for them and was derelict in places. They didn’t mention the jealousy their love of each other had bred in him, that had flourished into deviousness and cruelty. The pain the day had brought would not easily pass, both were aware of that. And yet it had to be, since it was part of what there was.

From “Timothy’s Birthday” by William Trevor

With carefully crafted sentences, short and long, paced by frequent commas and semicolons,  William Trevor conveyed  to the reader an elderly couple’s long and protracted relationship—“Their own way of life was so much debris all around them.” His selection of words and the rhythm of his prose enhance the message of this brilliant literary snippet: the almost unbreakable link intertwined between husband and wife in a long-standing marriage over the years.  I love the stunning ending: “And yet it had to be, since it was part of what there was.”