Story v novel: An excellent piece of short fiction by Kate Walert

The impressive story from Kate Walbert, To Do, in current New Yorker in a few pages gets at the essence of a complex mother-daughter relationship and a look at feminism across two different eras; I don't know too much about Walbert's work, but did read about 10 years ago her impressive novel A Short History of Women, which also examined feminism and women's empowerment across several generations while maintaining efficiency and focus. This story is a novel in miniature: the protagonist, Constance, is a professor (English) at a college in Chicago; she goes to a women's storytelling event - it seems to be sponsored by her department head, but that's not clear - and tells a story about the recent death of her mother in a nursing home and the many "to do" notes that she left behind. The story gets almost no reaction from her friends and colleagues in the crowd (though the do heartily applaud a salacious performance by a colleague who balances spoons from her breasts). Constance leaves w/ this colleague, goes home to her nondescript condo where she's locked out (no key); she calls a locksmith and invites him in for a drink and of course they have sex. After he leaves (going home to his wife) she recollects a story about her mother than she should have told - and this "untold" story focuses on her mother's prim demeanor and exterior and her secret drinking and a day in which the teenage Constance covered for her mother, out cold from drinking, by taking her place in a bridge game - and the story ends w/ quite a kick, which I won't divulge, when her mother asks "What did I miss?" As noted in other posts, there are so many stories about which people say: Why not build this into a novel? The answer, sometimes, is: Because the story accomplished its goals and is perfect as it is.