Today Will Be a Quiet Day by Amy Hempel
"Today Will Be a Quiet Day" by Amy Hempel is a story centered around three unnamed characters who are identified solely by their familial relationships—father, daughter, and son. The narrative unfolds during a day spent together after what appears to be a divorce, as the children visit their father. He cancels their music lessons to observe them and engage in a shared experience without directly asking about their feelings. The day includes a drive to a modified drive-in restaurant, where sibling banter highlights their dynamic.
Throughout their time together, the father expresses typical parental concerns, such as cautioning against eating candy before lunch. Two significant yet seemingly trivial events occur: a dark joke told by the daughter and a revelation about the family's dog. As the day concludes, the family prepares to sleep in a cozy arrangement, suggesting warmth and connection despite the underlying complexities of their situation. Ultimately, the father concludes that his children are coping well, reflecting a subtle hope for their emotional well-being amidst the changes in their family structure.
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Today Will Be a Quiet Day by Amy Hempel
First published: 1985
Type of plot: Domestic realism
Time of work: The 1970's or 1980's
Locale: San Francisco, California
Principal Characters:
A father His thirteen-year-old son His sixteen-year-old daughter
The Story
The three characters in this story remain nameless throughout. Instead, they are identified only by their relationships to the others: father, daughter, sister, son, or brother. Also omitted is an overt explanation of the reason these three are together in this special way on this particular day. The mother is never mentioned, yet there is little doubt that there has been a divorce and that the children are visiting their father; in fact, they are spending this night with him. The father has canceled the children's music lessons so that the three of them can spend the day together. He wants to find out how his children are doing, but will not ask them outright. He chooses simply to observe them during their day together.
The father takes his children on a long drive out of the city. Rather than attend a men's arm-wrestling competition, the children choose to go to a modified drive-in restaurant: Pete's—a gas station converted into a place to eat. In the car the children fall into the type of competitive banter and pseudo-arguments that siblings often share. Throughout the day the father says all the appropriate "Dad things" that fathers enjoy saying to their children, such as, "Neither of you should be eating candy before lunch."
There are two seemingly trivial but actually important incidents in the story: The girl tells a joke about three men about to be beheaded: The first two are spared because the guillotine does not work correctly, but the third dies after pointing out the device's mechanical problem. The girl learns that a family dog was not sent to a farm to live after it had bitten a Campfire Girl selling candy at their front door, but rather it was dead because the bitten girl's family had insisted that it be destroyed according to California law.
After they eat, the father lets the daughter drive home. When they reach his house, they prepare to sleep on the floor of the master bedroom in sleeping bags positioned in a cozy triangle, as if around a campfire. Nothing significant happens; yet at the end of the day, the father decides that his children are coping well, that "they are all right."