What is the summary of San Francisco by Amy Hempel?

"San Francisco" is one of Amy Hempel's short stories that can be found in her collection entitled The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel.  This particular story is a wonderful attempt of a young girl to deal with grief and loss of a close family member.

We learn early on in the story that the narrator's mother has died.  The narrator continues to ask her dead mother hypothetical questions in order to deal with the grief.  There are very few things that "happen" in the story as a result.  The entire story is simply this girl's recollection of memories that connect to one particular item of her mother's:  a watch. 

In this story, then, the watch becomes a prominent symbol.  This watch helps the narrator connect her past memories of her mother (and her sister, Maidy) to the different earthquakes in San Francisco (hence the title) and, therefore, allows the narrator to remember even more about her family.  The irony here is that the narrator's mother's death is never actually mentioned and, yet, the reader knows it has happened.  She talks about "where" they were when "it" happened as well as which daughter actually "found" the body.  In this way, the mother's death becomes clear.

In a story as short as this (only three pages), it is a masterful piece of work that deals in the first person with a young girl's grief and loss of her mother through one of her mother's possessions:  a watch.