Eligible

by Curtis Sittenfeld

It was generally less shocking to Liz that twenty years after high school she was still her essential self, the self she’d grown up as, unencumbered by spouse or child, than that nearly everyone else had changed, moved on, and multiplied.

Her younger sisters’ vulgarity was not a surprise to Liz; indeed, she herself, more than Jane or Mary, could enjoy a dirty joke. However, the difference between Liz and her youngest sisters was their lack of deference to context. Among near strangers, Liz would never have been so artlessly, fearlessly crude. But Kitty and Lydia were always themselves, in a way Liz found both appalling and admirable.

though Liz suspected that this fact reflected poorly on her, she was at times most able to enjoy her family members when she could sense their presence nearby without actually interacting with them.

Time seemed, as it always does in adulthood after a particular stretch has concluded, no matter how ponderous or unpleasant the stretch was to endure, to have passed quickly indeed.