This Time Tomorrow

by Emma Straub

When she was young, she’d thought he was old, and now that he was old, Alice realized how young he’d been. Perspective was unfair.

Alice wondered if no one ever felt as old as they were because it happened so slowly, and you were only ever one day slower and creakier, and the world changed so gradually that by the time cars had evolved from boxy to smooth, or green taxis had joined yellow ones, or MetroCards had replaced tokens, you were used to it. Everyone was a lobster in the pot.

Maybe that was the trick to life: to notice all the tiny moments in the day when everything else fell away and, for a split second, or maybe even a few seconds, you had no worries, only pleasure, only appreciation of what was right in front of you.

the knowledge that everything would change, the good and the bad, and so you might as well appreciate the good.

‘It’s a bit like Spider-Man, if I may be so bold. When you have a successful book, you have the power to publish another, but the reason the book was successful in the first place creates a sense of responsibility to one’s readers – they liked this, which is why I have that, and so on. There are some writers who write the same book over and over again, once a year, for decades, because their readers enjoy it and they can do it, and they do it well, and that’s that.

The problem with adulthood was feeling like everything came with a timer

This was what Alice had been missing. Not just the answers to questions that she’d never been brave enough to ask, and not just family history that no one else knew, and not just visions of her own childhood through her father’s eyes, but also this: the embarrassing stories she’d heard a thousand times and would never hear again.

Could one person do everything the same way twice, even if they were trying?

Alice did not want a surprise party, but still. More than not wanting a giant party, she didn’t want to feel unworthy of one.

It was the worst fact of parenthood, that what you did mattered so much more than anything you said.

She hadn’t understood it at the time – the difference between her and Sam, the difference between her and Lizzie, the difference between wanting someone to fall in love with her and wanting anyone to fall in love with her.

Alice had always thought that Tommy was playing hard to get, or just playing with her, period, but now she understood. He was a teenager, just like she was, waiting for someone else to tell him what to do.

Alice had been in love a few times, enough to know that soul mates were a myth and that a person’s requirements and tastes changed as they did.

She hadn’t spent the last twenty-odd years wishing that she’d been with Tommy, that she’d married Tommy, but she had spent the last twenty-odd years learning that waiting was an inefficient way to get what she wanted. If Alice was going to do anything better, it was that – making her wishes known.

what it feels like to love someone so much, and then have them change into someone else. You love that new person, but it’s different, and it all happens so fast, even the parts that feel like they just last for fucking ever while they’re happening.’

‘It’s okay to lose people, Al. Loss is the point. You can’t take away the grief, the pain, because then what are you left with?

Maybe there were endless opportunities for parties, and for love, if you built a life that made room for them.

He had been young, and she had been young – they had been young together. Why was it so hard to see that, how close generations were? That children and their parents were companions through life. Maybe that’s why she was here now. Maybe this was the moment when they were both at their best, and together.

Once you had proof of the sudden cruelty of life, how could you ever relax? How could you just let things happen?

Any story could be a comedy or a tragedy, depending on where you ended it. That was the magic, how the same story could be told an infinite number of ways.