My brother, Jason, came into the bar, then, and sauntered over to give me a hug. He knows that women like a man who's good to his family and also kind to the disabled, so hugging me is a double whammy of recommendation.

You never told me all this before," I said, by way of explanation. "You all have divided up America into kingdoms, is that right?

For awhile I taped soap operas and watched them at night when I thought I might be forgetting what it was like to be human. After a while I stopped, because from the examples I saw on those shows, forgetting humanity was a good thing.

If I was getting harder, it was in response to the world around me.

I'm a middle-class former housewife who goes to my daughter's softball games.

I’d never seen anything like it. First a trial, then a few murders, then dancing. Life goes on. Or, in this case, death continues.

In the world I lived in, the world of human people, there were ties and debts and consequences and good deeds. That was what bound people to society; maybe that was what constituted society. And I tried to live in my little niche in it the best way I could.