[Fiction] An elderly woman encounters her past at her nursing home:
A beautiful day—even though Elise can smell chickens from the poultry complex down the road and exhaust from the interstate, even though the pear trees in this so-called orchard bear no fruit. The mums are in bloom. Bees glitter above the beds. And a skinny man comes toward her, showing off his mastery of the strap-on LIMBs.
‘Elise.’ He squints at her. ‘You still got it. Prettiest girl at Eden Village.’
She flashes her dentures but says nothing.
Get the Longreads Weekly Email