absent

Posters for candidates, inescapable in other parts of Australia, are conspicuously absent as you drive past fields of sugar cane and down a gently winding coastal road.

“Thousands of bright students across the country,” he wrote recently, “would be denied careers in science and engineering absent the fellowships and research funds to support them.”

But Blues did the same when he was absent the ability to sedate himself.

Those sessions are capsulized in “Notes to John,” journal-like entries that were addressed to Didion’s husband, who was mostly absent from the appointments.

Only much later do we, and he, come to understand that the absent Soprano progenitor is more to blame for influencing his son’s behavioral shortcomings than Tony first imagines.