It was a kind of cold, flat astonishment at the smallness of it.

Part Forty-Three: They Look Like Potatoes

“They are three hours old,” my mother said, and her voice was cold enough to set custard.

“They look like potatoes.”

I laughed.

It came out of me as a single bark, completely involuntary, and it hurt my abdomen so much that I had to put my hand flat on the blanket, and I have never in my life been more grateful to anybody for anything.

Because she had done the thing that nobody else in that room had done, which was to decline the premise.