gone back to college, taking Thom with her), and I watched a lot of daytime television, marveling at its never-ending advertisements for loan companies and stairlifts, and its preoccupation with minor celebrities whom the better part of a year abroad had left me unable to recognize. It was like being in a little cocoon, one that, admittedly, had a whacking great elephant squatting in its corner.
We did not talk about anything that might upset this delicate equilibrium. I would watch whatever celebrity news that daytime television served up and then say at supper, “Well, what about that Shayna West, then, eh?” And Mum and Dad would leap on the topic gratefully, remarking that she was a trollop or had nice hair or that she was no better than she should be. We covered Bargains That Could Be
