Jonathan was asked by his aunt Frances to write letters to his grandmother, claiming that they were from his father, Jack, who had actually died. The mission was planned to pretend to the grandmother that Jack was still alive so that she wouldn't get shocked by the piece of news.
Everything in the world changes when the time passes - even the fashion the grave stones are carved - but not the family. The old lady doesn't want anything to change. Or perhaps she wants it to change the same way everyone else wants but the aunts are too protective towards her and think even a little change might break her.
Jonathan's mother Ruth is bitter and frustrated because their whole life has been tied to the mother-in-law's desires. She feels like an outsider in the "true family", meaning the blood relatives of the grandmother. Ruth applies for a job in the hospital where they treated Jack (which Jonathan thinks is masochistic) because she wants to cling on the last memories of her husband, while aunt Frances wants to create a prettier picture, a suitable memory of him.
Unlike his mother, Jonathan doesn't hate aunt Frances. He writes letters because she wants him to even though it doesn't feel the right thing to do for him. Like his father, he is like a servant; he is easy to manipulate and always does what he is asked to do. They both thought it was a question of honour to please other people, but maybe the servant-mindedness is at least partly a weakness.
Aunt Frances tells Jonathan to tell his mother that the old lady is going to die soon. Jonathan doesn't do that because he tries to maintain (or rather create) paece between the two sides of the family who are continuously hurting each other's feelings deliberately. Ruth and the aunts started fighting when Jack got into trouble in business life. They argued whose fault it was.
Jack had not been a very lucky man in his life and when he died, fortune continued working the same way: when he died, the stonecutters had gone on srtike so the family couldn't buy a proper headstone for his grave.
Aunt Frances thinks it is necessary to write another lettor to grandma because she has bruised herself and is feeling depressed, so it is time for the writer in the family to help again. She tries to make Jonathan feel as if it he had a responsibility to lie to the grandmother. The lesser citizens by blood are a part of the family only when needed by the true family.
Jonathan's brother Harold thinks that Jonathan should quit writing the faux letters from their father. The brothers discuss why it has to be only Jonathan who writes the letters, why not aunt Frances herself or her well-educated sons?
Jack never wanted to let his relatives down when they wanted or needed something from him and now it's the same with Jonathan. Harold isn't happy with the situation, he wants Jonathan to stop trying to please aunt Frances.
It's not only the aunts who want Jonathan to do them favours; also his mother and brother require him to do different things. Jonathan is always being steered and shepherder by others.
Jonathan has always thought that it is right to be obedient. The letter-writing process changes him: his ethics force him to write about the death of his father in the third letter. He writes that the wrong life has killed Jack. "The wrong life" may refer to the lie they built: that instead of dying Jack travelled to Arizona. Jonathan knows that moving to a desert wasn't something his father would have done. It may also refer to the expectation everyone was making on Jack while he was still alive. Everyone was waiting something from him and thought he was someone else than he really was. Actually Jack was quite content with his life even though he wasn't wealthy. He loved his city, New York, and always discovered new things there.
When Jonathan found out that his father had served in the Navy he felt bad because he hadn't known it earlier. Still, he knew his father maybe better than anyone else: he had an intuitive feeling that his father would have wanted to be cremated and his ashes to be scattered in the ocean. And that was before he had been told Jack had loved the ocean.
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