Chapter 12 — A Day of Fake Politeness

And so the long Christmas day ground on, under a thick cloud of miserable, performed politeness, everyone smiling and passing dishes and exclaiming over the food while that cardboard tag hung invisibly over the whole house.

There was turkey, and there were toasts, and there was the ceremonial admiring of the grandchildren’s new tablets, and Beatrice presided over all of it with the serene satisfaction of a woman whose authority had once again gone unchallenged.

She believed she had won.