The Age of Grief Read Free Page A

like the one- and two-day mothers who tell her exactly how the breast was taken, whether the sucking reflex seemed sufficiently developed, how five minutes on each side didn’t seem like enough. Like the mothers, Florence smiles, self-deprecating, but can’t stop.
    “Another thing about him,” she tells Frannie on the phone, “is that he acts as much as he talks. Don’t you think that’s very rare? We never sit around, saying what shall we do. When he picks me up, he always has some plan. And he thinks about what I might like to do, and he’s always right. I must say that this care is rather thrilling. It’s almost unmasculine!”
    “I’m envious,” replies Frannie, and Florence, marveling at her good luck, demurs. “He does have something of a temper, though.” When Florence hangs up the phone, she realizes that Frannie didn’t sound envious. Florence smiles. She loves Frannie completely.
    That evening Bryan says, “Doesn’t your friend Frannie work over at the U?”
    “Off-campus programs. How come?”
    “Someone mentioned her at lunch today.”
    “What did they say?” Her voice rises, oddly protective and angry. Bryan glances at her and smiles. “Nothing, dear. Just mentioned her name.”
    Florence remains disturbed and later decides it is because she wants Frannie, Frannie’s delight, conversation, thoughtfulness, all to herself. That her name can come up among strangers implies a life that fans away into the unknown. She wonders about Frannie’s activities in the intervals of her absence. She feels none of this jealousy with Bryan.
    Florence rolls away from Bryan and grabs the phone at the end of the first ring. Bryan heaves and groans but does not awaken. Florence thinks it will be the hospital, but it is Frannie, who says, “My Lord, it’s only ten thirty!”
    “I got up at five this morning. How are you?”
    “Can you get up at six tomorrow? A friend offered me her strawberry patch. We can pick some, then have a picnic breakfast. “
    “Lovely. Let’s just have fruit and bread and juice.”
    “I’ll pick you up at six fifteen.”
    “Mmmmm.”
    The morning could not be fresher. Frannie’s new car is pearled with dew and smells, inside, of French bread. The strawberry patch is professionally laid out in neat rows, and among shiny dark leaves, the heartlike berries weigh into pale straw. The earth is springy and smells of damp. Two maples at the corner of the garden cast black, sharp-edged shadows; everything else sparkles with such sunlight that Florence’s vision vibrates. Ripe berries plop into their hands at a touch. Frannie, it turns out, has brought champagne. “And not only jam,” she is saying, “but a really delicious liqueur my friend has the recipe for. And look over there!Those two apricot trees bloomed this spring, and that peach. The one next to it is a Chinese chestnut. She lives here alone and hates to see it go to waste. In the fall, she says she has the best apples in the county.” Frannie shades her eyes and looks across the field toward the house. “I was hoping she’d come out. Anyway, last year there were seven bushels on one tree alone.”
    “Frannie, I’ve known you all these months, and I’ve never realized what an earth mother you are. I feel like I’ve missed something.”
    “Converts are the most ardent, you know. But don’t you love the romance of the harvest?” She sucks a berry off the stem.
    “The romance of putting up two dozen quarts of tomatoes and a dozen quarts of beans in one evening when the temperature and the humidity are both ninety-five?”
    “The romance of opening a jar of strawberry jam in the middle of December!”
    “I’d call that the romance of consumption.”
    “Call it what you like. Mmmmm!” She bites into another strawberry and glances toward the still house again.
    They sit under one of the maples with their shoes off, tearing hunks of bread. Champagne sizzles in their bowl of berries, and the butter is still cool,