Into the Attic by Ellen Sherman

Author:Ellen Sherman [Sherman, Ellen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-09-24T13:15:49+00:00

A little grumpy

A little cranky

A little crabby . . .

“I don’t think you’ve got those words right. Pajama Game, Mom?” Caroline asks. Her mom has such a pretty voice, although it’s deeper and throatier than she remembers.

Older.

“Hmm. You know, I can’t remember where that’s from, but let me tell you, dear, getting old sucks. It’s not the fun part of the movie. As me ole dad used to say, ‘My get up and go, got up and went.’”

“Have you seen Popup in heaven?” Caroline asks.

“Just a few glimpses because, as mentioned previously, we haven’t quite made it to heaven yet, though we should have. We’ve waited long enough. We’re worn out, pooped. You’ll see someday. You have no energy, no stamina. You don’t feel particularly great. Your mind’s like a sieve. You see how much we nap, for God’s sake! It’s unabashedly dreadful.”

Yup, this is the mom she knows and loves. Caroline is plenty aware of the downsides of aging, but she would never saddle her kids by telling them it was unabashedly dreadful. For her children, she tries to be brave and face things gracefully, keeping her anxieties to herself as much as possible. She believes parents should present themselves as fearless leaders; over time, kids manufacture plenty of dread on their own.

But Bernice seemed to lack that parental instinct. Flying was a prime example. Caroline would be readying to leave on a trip and Bernice would drone on and on: “Hope you’re okay. Hope your flight’s not a nightmare, like when I flew to Buffalo. That was the worst. People lurching all over the place. The stewardess bumped her head and passed out . . .”

“Mom, please, I’m trying to stay in a Zen place about it,” Caroline would say.

But her mom never held back about the things that frightened her: flying, illness, getting shots, having procedures . . . getting old.

“How do you work this contraption? I’ve heard it has a stock market page.” Norman to the rescue. He is waving Caroline’s laptop in the air.

“Careful! Hey, where’d you get that? I was looking for it.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a computer, Dad. You had one. Don’t you remember?”

“That was gigantic! It looked like an air conditioner.”

Caroline laughs. “Yeah, they’ve really changed. This one’s called a laptop.” She takes it from her father and turns to Michael. “Have you been inspecting this too?”

“I tried. We couldn’t turn it on,” he says. “Why does it matter? Are you keeping secrets, Caroline?”

“Not secrets, exactly, but everything is on it. My whole life.”

He looks skeptical. “Why do you keep it in the attic?”

“I don’t. I brought it up here to catalogue stuff, so I can tell everyone where everything is. I’m old enough that I forgot I did that. I’ve been packing and repacking boxes these days because someday we’re going to move.”

“You’d sell the house?”

“We don’t have immediate plans, but some day. Don’t look crushed. It’s good to purge now and a change might be good.”

“You’re keeping something from me,” he

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