AT THE KITCHEN TABLES, over tea, the women would dream up the worst possible scenarios and then at the end they would say, in the alto tones of a martyr, “Well, I would keep the child.” Always I would keep the child, with the flame-circled air of a person setting her jaw and throwing her head back and making the heroic choice. But what they were asking was for there to be no choice at all. That was the country they wanted.
