Ways to Cry

#26 of 52 Fictions: A Story a Week for 2026

Jun 30, 2026

Photo illustration by Erin Schoepke/Lunascape Photography

Early in their relationship Jenny would have said that Paul, her husband, was “not a big crier.” But as he grew older, he cried more often. She asked him about it. Was he more comfortable crying now? Was there more to cry about?

He said maybe both.

Paul cried when his mother said mean things to him, which was often. He cried when his boss made capricious and irrational decisions, which was often. He cried when the news of the nation and the world was dreadful, which was often.

Paul didn’t cry in public or with other family around. It seemed that he never cried except with her. Maybe he cried alone? Jenny asked if sometimes he cried alone.

No, he said. He only cried with her. He said that when he was growing up, crying had seemed to be something he wasn’t supposed to do. But when he was with her, it became possible.

He had two ways of crying. In one, he sat silent and tears leaked from his eyes, and sometimes he rocked forward and back by minute degrees, with his hands clutched together, staring at the floor or at her. In the other way, more rare, he cried in deep, heaving sobs. At these times, a physical thing seemed to be inside of him, clawing to get out, and he clutched at his stomach or his face, and he threw his head back, or he grimaced, moaned, and whimpered.

When he was crying, she tried to comfort him. She always felt bad when he cried, felt as if she should be crying too. Sometimes she did but usually not. She wanted to take away what pained him, but all she could do was pat his back, tell him things would be all right, that he was loved. She tried to say simple, understanding things and to hold him, if he wanted to be held.

They grew older together. Then, one day, Jenny developed an ailment, which became an illness. Then she was in hospice, and then she died.

Paul had a terrible time then. His sorrow was gigantic. He didn’t know how he would live now. But also, he had a specific problem, which was that he didn’t know how to cry without her. He had only ever cried with her, and now she was gone.

He tried sitting with photos of her; he tried watching a video; he went through her clothes and keepsakes; but none of these were the same as being with her, and still he couldn’t cry.

He began to think that perhaps he could never cry again, and he felt himself stoppered up, a cry in him uncried, Jenny gone forever and himself unable to weep. He grew distraught with this problem and the feeling of grief unreleased.

One night as he lay awake anguished and exhausted, he began to hiccup. The hiccups went on and on, and it began to seem tragic to him, a final indignity—he thought possibly the hiccups would kill him, and then he thought that possibly it would be just as well. After this suicidal thought, waves of misery poured up and down with the hiccup spasms, and to his amazement he realized that he was crying. He had found something different from the two ways that he had cried with Jenny, a third way of crying.

So, for years, when he needed to cry, he cried in this way of hiccups and waves.

He lived alone, and he grew quite old. One day he developed an ailment, which became an illness. He began to worry that he might die. He was alone in his bed in his house, and he didn’t think he could rise to find the phone. He began to cry, first silently with his eyes leaking, and then in great wracking sobs with his head back. He was so hurting and afraid that it took awhile before he realized that he was crying in the old ways, as he had with Jenny.

This was possible, he knew—he knew it in the way you know with certainty whether you are underwater or in the air—that she was with him again. He still felt hurting and afraid, but she was with him, and everything, all that he had held close inside, could now be let go.

Nick Arvin

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