15
There’s a dozen people in the garishly overdone funeral hall.
One way or another, I’m related to all of them.
I have no idea how I climbed out of this shallow gene pool. I only know I’m not diving back into it.
My quick glance picks out Uncle Carl and Aunt Pat at the back of the room, sitting side by side on one of the Torquemada couches. I can already see that Uncle Carl’s eyes aren’t so good anymore, and the way Aunt Pat clutches his hand tells me she has her own problems. They must be, what, in their sixties now?
Without Carl and Pat, I never would have made it to college. I’d be standing there like Cousin Molly, who must have carved a fresh hole in the ozone layer to get her hair that big. She’d been in a Goth phase when I’d seen her last, but that dress looks like she’d had to
