‘Housemom’ is an excellent title for this story. The narrator’s mother is dying of cancer and the place will literally fall apart without her.

Gregory’s characters feel like a real family — they love each other but maybe don’t like each other much. Things unravel in a sad, comic and very human way.

Robbie is a directionless, non-tenure-track lecturer of Marxist history at a small liberal arts college two hours away. His wife, Samantha, is a “consultant” who specializes in “asset oversight” for “troubled municipalities” at a “Big Four.” Other than a respect for each other’s bitterness, what they love about each other baffles me.