Though my family didn’t talk much to one another, we did talk about one another. My dad’s parents would refer to their daughter-in-law as “her” or “she,” talking as if my mother were invisible even though she sat right there at the table. “Does she ever eat?” they would say to my father. “Does she know how skinny she looks?” I suppose we were better observers than communicators; we were all subjects to be worried over, complained about, even adored, but never quite people to be held or loved. There was an intellectual, almost absurd distance.
This is a good observation of some inter-family business.
