Atmosphere

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Frances was nine now and had taken on an air of maturity that Joan both celebrated and mourned. There was no sitting on Joan’s lap anymore, no smushing their noses together, no carrying Frances across a crowded parking lot. Those things had been replaced by talking about pop music, and wanting to see a lot of the same movies, and less being asked of Joan in the taking care of her. When Frances had been younger, Joan would sometimes carry her such long distances that it hurt her back. Back then, Frances would hang on so tight that sometimes she would press on Joan’s windpipe or kick her in the ribs. Now Frances would barely hold her hand. Joan felt, so acutely, that the incurable problem with life was that nothing was ever in balance. That she could not have toddler Frances and fifth-grade Frances at the same time. She could not meet adult Frances and have a moment to hold baby Frances all at once. You could not have a little of everything you wanted. Joan tried to remind herself that when Frances had been younger, she had held Frances’s little hand every single chance she got. When Frances had been a baby, she had smelled her hair sometimes for whole minutes at a time. She had been present for all of it. Didn’t that mean that she would not grieve its loss, since she had voraciously and self-indulgently taken all of it that was offered? No. It did not. She still ached for every version of Frances. But to love Frances was to be always saying goodbye to the girl Frances used ...