We're close contacts with someone who has covid, one of the husband's cousins who had visited the bar on St. Stephen's Day. We drank with them after closing the bar, obligated by kinship. I like them, but at the end of the night, sober as a judge and listening to them roar and gossip, I was ready for bed.

Some people are good at families, at being among others for prolonged periods of time, regardless of their foibles. I don't know if I am. It’s hard enough being alone with your own quirks and shortcomings. Maybe I wouldn't feel such ties were burdensome, if I had been raised differently. My mother resented us, as much as she needed us to verify the necessity of her being as mother and wife. And she warned me, didn't she, about being married and having kids, how onerous it all was. And so it never felt natural, being a wife and considering children, how it felt like I was losing whatever freedom I fancied I had.

God, I would like to just run away now and live in a mountain hut for a few years. Take Sam and a suitcase of books with me and hide while the world burns. But I can't really fend for myself and I'd get bored once I run out of books to read. And should I perish, Sam would probably eat my face.

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