The Most Fun We Ever Had

by Claire Lombardo

And this was what worried her the most: nothing had ever felt as comfortable, as easy, as good as being with her parents, her family. No one, it seemed, would ever regard her with the same enthusiastic awe as her mother; the same quiet, feverish pride as her father. It aroused concern within that she was slated for a lifetime of disappointment from the outside.

She started laughing, the kind of laughing where you were also partially crying; she had always associated it with exhaustion and psychopathy and her mother.

She imagined the fluctuating dynamics in their marriage flying around them like molecules, shape-shifting genetic code. You’re worried. Now I am. Now it’s your turn again.