Virginia,
Correct, but the story was not about her death but about Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan's developing relationship and his son's impact on it. That plus the audience never met/saw the wife (that I can recall) and hence had no attachment to her character. The death was not the focus because it was a romantic comedy. It would be like your scenario except maybe someone the readers never knew or just barely had heard of instead of Lana or Lois and Paul actually falling in love during college, marrying, having a kid, and him being killed in a airplane/auto accident. I believe there are some of those types of stories around the archive but I cannot remember any titles off the top of my head and don't have the time to research...
Anyway, I was just using it as an example (maybe a bad one) of the popular movies of the time "You Got Mail" and "Harry Met Sally" were two probably more appropriate of Meg Ryan's movies of the time.
Who knows we might see something similar (kids trying to set Clark up) in the last couple of chapters of "Not the Years".
Mike
