The Purse

This story is from "True tales of American life edited and introduced by Paul Auster"

     This story was a little sad one. The heroine of this is young woman working as a gas meter reader. Every month she call on an Italian man Joe's house as her job. Every time she come to him, he meet her friendly with a good smile. Under his meter, there has been a worn tarnished purse always and maybe its for woman. 

     She wonder what is that. One day, he talked about it to her sadly.

"We were going shopping....She put the purse down,....She needed to sit for a minute....I couldn't touch it after....I can't move it"

     I think "she" he said is his former wife or lover and now she is gone. Next time she call on Joe, he was not there. He may had gone too.