We were in the kitchen, listening to the radio — Norma preparing dinner, Mara studying for exams — when the bulletin came over the air. The United States had just gone to war with Iraq. Mara, not quite fifteen, looked up in astonishment. Norma put down her knife and wept.
We listened glumly for the next couple of hours, the way you listen to rain hitting the roof the day of a picnic, or a funeral, knowing it’s not going to stop. I didn’t need George Bush to tell me which way the wind was blowing, but I listened to his speech — to his cant about peace, his shameful apology for choosing a military solution to a complex political problem. By turns resigned and outraged, I hooted once or twice, like a school kid jeering at his principal’s wearisome pieties. But fuming at the radio seemed pointless.
