The Floating Feldmans by Elyssa Friedland

Author:Elyssa Friedland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

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“Mom? Dad?” Elise rapped gently on their door a few times but nobody answered. Her parents had said they were going to lie down after lunch in order to rest up for the Gala Around the Globe, the formal title for the evening’s fress-fest. They were aging, Annette and David. Elise could see it in the bluish veins that ran just below the surface of their skin, the liver spots that could no longer be mistaken for freckles, and the curves of their spines that made it seem they were about to pick something up from the floor. They even walked differently, cautious and slow, always braced for a fall like they were roller-skating for the first time. They seemed to have aged about two decades since retirement, idleness sending the message to the brain that it ought to just shut down entirely. Should she suggest that the two of them pick up a hobby together? It didn’t have to be something active, like tennis or golf, but maybe bridge. When Elise dropped Darius off at the community center for basketball or to swim, she passed room after room filled with elderly foursomes gathered around card tables, fluorescent lighting bouncing off the silver hair. Her mother played mah-jongg already, but that seemed to be the domain of the ladies. It didn’t have to be a game at all. They could take up something entirely out of their wheelhouse: bird-watching, gardening, anything that would reignite their neural pathways and spring some life into their brittle bones.

Her parents had been so worried for her after she quit medical school, concerned that she’d wither. It seemed to Elise that it was an eventuality for everyone and really just a question of when. Fortunately for her, raising Rachel and Darius kept her on her toes like a prima ballerina. At least it had until recently, when her role converted to backup dancer. Seeing her parents descend into old age was causing Elise to reflect on her own trajectory. After so many days of repetitive behavior—grocery shopping, driving carpool, preparing dinner—it had been easy to feel that she was standing still and not on a moving walkway. She pictured the entrance to Bloomingdale’s at the Palisades Mall. The automatic doors from the parking garage opened onto the young, contemporary section with the hot designers and bright colors. She used to shop there, choosing wacky prints and daring higher hemlines. When did she make the decision to bypass that department and head straight for the A-line dresses and sensible pumps? Did it happen overnight or had it been gradual? There was the day she had been embarrassed to go to a friend’s birthday luncheon in a one-shoulder pink blouse and had run inside the house to change. And the time when Rachel taught her how to snap a picture of her back with her phone and she’d suddenly noticed dimples of cellulite that she had no way of dating. It didn’t matter when the total eclipse of her youth occurred.

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