The tone of the short story "Taking Care" by Joy Williams is objective and leisurely, recreating in the pace of the words the moments in the life of the central character that form the story. The author uses understatement in depicting the sense of cosmic irony facing the central character. The narrator, Jones, "takes care" as he goes through his daily life, for he is the central strength in the family and must take care of everyone else. He is faced with a crisis because of the cancer of his wife, an illness requiring surgery. At the same time, their daughter has flitted off somewhere and left behind her baby, making the baby Jones's responsibility as well. He is faced with the two ends of life at one and the same time, with birth and with death (or at least potential death), and his admonition to others to take care has a number of levels of meaning--he wishes them to take care to protect themselves, he wishes them to take care and have more responsibility, he wishes them to take care and not live a life in which they let moments go by as he has in the past, and so on. In this story, Jones gives more attention to his life than he ever has before and draws the various elements of it together, showing how much he cares for each of the people who are part of his life.
His wife and daughter are the two primary people he ponders over, along with the baby his daughter has left behind. The lengthy paragraphs give the story a slow and careful pace, imitating the way Jones is confronting his life, for the man is burdened by his memories as well as his current concerns and takes his time as he moves through life bringing out moments from the past and trying to reconcile them not only with the present but with the potential future he so fears. His wife's illness forces him to reconsider past events and to look only dimly at what life might be like without her. Moments in the present become drawn out as they recall earlier events to...