said, thoughtlessly, “Mother, why do you wear those stiff plain things all the time?”

Hannah, who had her own notion of humour, would reply, “The better to clothe you, my dear.”

Her girlhood friends she saw seldom. Two of them had married. One was a spinster of forty. They had all moved to the south side during the period of popularity briefly enjoyed by that section in the late ‘90s. Hannah had no time for their afternoon affairs. At night she was too tired or too busy for outside diversions. When they met her they said, “Hannah Winter, you don’t grow a day older. How do you do it!”

“Hard work.”

“A person never sees you. Why don’t you take an