In the short story Save as Many as You Ruin we hear about Gerard. He has a daughter, Lucy, whose mother, Issy, died years prior

Simon Van Booy, the author, uses the weather to describe the mood; especially the snow is used for underlining the intensity of the situation. When he sees her in a line in a shop, the snow has become a blizzard – suddenly things happen very slowly. You can see the impression of slow motion because the author has decided to spend ten lines describing a moment that lasts only five seconds. The author uses flashback to travel quickly through Gerard’s life, which is creating some sort of insignificance that he expresses his fear of in the beginning of the story. He is so busy living his life in the past that he gets caught up and forgets that time goes by. He simply accepts the present that he is living in. He is only a spectator in his own life.  

This is the thought that leads to his revelation at the end: now he realizes that he has the chance to fix the relationship with Laurel that he once ruined, and still keep Lucy in his life. This is his chance and he has to take it because things will not happen by themselves. There is no destiny – life is controlled and consists of a line of coincidences. “(…) and like Lucy’s conception – life is a string of guided and subtle explosions” Laurel’s return into his life is only a coincidence, but a chance that he should take and consider himself lucky to get. “Someone was here, he could have sworn it. (…) He thinks of how strange life is with its frayed edges and second chances” The feeling he describes of being watched or followed may be imaginary. Imaginary in the sense that he is feeling guilt towards Issy and Laurel because he feels like that what he is about to begin with Laurel is like the affair he had with Issy – which ended tragically. He is afraid of losing Laurel, the love of his life, like he lost Issy.

As a conclusion you can say that Gerard is a man whose life has been controlled by the mistakes he has made in his past, and these mistakes have made him passive in his present life. However, the mistake of cheating on Laurel did bring a positive thing with it: Lucy, his beautiful daughter. This contradiction is one of the most significant contrasts in the story. But at the time these mistakes leads him to the revelation in the end. He realizes that all things happen for a reason. When Gerard sees Laurel in the shopping line he gets his chance to make amends and fix the relationship with her. He can get the love of his life back.
    The author uses the weather, flashbacks and slow motion to set the mood in the story. You especially see this when he has to describe Gerard’s feeling towards Laurel.