"Love" is a word that scarcely makes an appearance in the short stories featured in Promise of Shelter, but it is love-or its failure-that underlies each and every one.

The over-ruling emotion that is named is fear; uncertainty and the possibility of disaster are never far away. The book points to the comfort of familiar things and is filled with images of home as the ultimate safe place. Losing the keys to that refuge, and the fear of losing one's way, are constants motifs that work on different levels. The small, vulnerable havens that we construct for ourselves in the midst of uncertainty and danger somehow remind us of our human situation and our need to feel at home in the vastness of the universe.

In the story "Shelter", Holly feels "confident enough of her own importance in the world" as she marches through the wintry night to the corner store, but almost immediately she feels "an uncharacteristic pang, half of self-consciousness, half of superstition, as though she tempted fate, feeling so secure in herself. In that split second's vulnerability she stopped paying attention to her feet and they slid out from under her, sending her flying on the ice." Awareness is essential. Throughout Promise of Shelter, characters perform small rituals and hope to stay safe; omens are everywhere, and objects become talismans. Keys are of special importance, with their power to open doors and allow entrance to safe spaces. Other objects given as gifts-a wooden bowl, a piece of agate, a paper-knife-have special significance, as if they have magical powers that connect recipient and giver. Bonds woven by love or friendship are fragile, but offer a kind of safety net.

Of these stories, only "Deuxième Arabesque" could be called a "love story". Nonnie, who had once been a promising music student but has not touched a piano since she was a teenager, falteringly begins to play again. She suffered some hurt as a young girl-involvement with a married music teacher is hinted at-and then made an unhappy first marriage. But now at forty she is in a second marriage that is filled with tenderness and trust. It's the new husband's interior monologue that conveys this brief tale. As he watches her at her piano, playing from long-forgotten music scores, he muses how "the music had pulled her back into girlhood and claimed a part of her that cannot ever entirely belong to you, and for some reason you are touched by this, and want not to disturb it; you are grateful that under your roof she feels safe enough to go back there." There is no jealousy or possessiveness in his response, only generosity and a sense of reverence. In this story, the tenderest of the collection, the word "love" appears only once (possibly the only time in the entire book) when he reflects, "You tell her that you love to hear her play." This oblique declaration of feeling is much more powerful than the words that habit expects.

At the opposite emotional pole is the story "Janine". It tells us of a man who has lost the ability to love. "I have terrible trouble communicating with my wife," he says, and we soon realize the problem probably does not lie with her. When his daughter-"a good girl, a considerate girl"-moved out at twenty-one, he wanted her to return her key to the house. "I didn't want to feel she could come and go freely, once she'd left the nest insisting that she wanted her independence," he explains. He frets over the success of a colleague's just published book, and is furious that some of his own ideas may have been incorporated into it. "My wife" is given no other name for several pages, until we finally learn that it's "Fernande". (His own name he doesn't offer at all.) The Janine of the title turns out to be a "big, dowdy blonde.a regular at the local restaurants, the various convenience stores." He supposes her to be a psychiatric outpatient. She makes him feel vaguely uncomfortable, for he associates her with "aimlessness and chaos". Fernande speaks pleasantly to her, much to her husband's annoyance, "but quite frankly," he confesses, "I have not the patience for small talk even with neighbours who have all their marbles." As this cold and controlling man slowly unravels through the course of one sleepless night, chaos and disintegration confront him through the image of Janine.

The other stories explore areas of love, or its failure, that lie between these two poles. They examine friendship withheld at a crucial moment and the guilt that follows; the failure of marriages and the comfort of second chances; and the cruel hurt of rejection.

Robyn Sarah, who lives in Montreal, has published several volumes of poetry and a previous collection of short stories, A Nice Gazebo (1992). Her poet's sensibility is at work in her fiction, too, transforming the most ordinary occurrences into extraordinary moments. Something as mundane as repainting a kitchen table suddenly takes on significance as an act of renewal. Sarah can hypnotize you with the recounting of the most trivial, everyday events-it's partly the tiny shocks of recognition of small, barely conscious thoughts or gestures that, at some level, you had assumed to be peculiarly your own. On the other hand, she can write of events that have a strong potential for melodrama-suicide, mental breakdown, schizophrenia-in a low-key, sometimes conversational tone that conveys the bizarre, but emphasizes the ordinariness in the midst of which the dramas occur. Unexpected flashes of black humour also keep the stories grounded.

Throughout the work, there is tension between the outer, physical world and the inner worlds of memory, imagination, and dream. "Accept my story" circles the event at its centre, surrounding it with imagined versions of its occurrence, and with connected memories. Its structure could be compared to that of a mandala; the comparison probably comes to mind because there is a sense in which many of these stories are meditative. The most obvious case is "Gabriel at My Left Hand", for it involves a journey up a mountain and an overnight vigil that is clearly also a meditation, one that promises a form of enlightenment, if only the two participants can grasp the moment. In "Shelter", Holly remembers a dream she had had as a child in which she had thought herself utterly lost, but then had suddenly recognized familiar streets and realized that her grandmother's house was close by. "In delight and gratitude she walked along in the feathery snow as if on air, making no sound, filled with peace at the beauty of the night and the nearness of safety. . She knew where she was going. She was nearly there." Something more than the relief of finding home and family is implied; there is the suggestion of an ultimate "shelter" and a sense of peace to be found. There are Zen-like qualities to these stories, in their spareness, and everydayness, as well as in their theme of homecoming. And like Zen tales, they stay with you long after they are told, teasing and puzzling the mind. 

Helen Hacksel is a Toronto writer.