“Listen, remember that thing I wanted to talk to you about?”
Her phone vibrated with a text. I care about you! Did she really not get that he was being overtly sexual? Had they had the ‘talk’? A single man—never remarried—with no kids that we knew, who nurtured and relished every real contact he could get into. I was standing there, not ten steps back, with my mind racing to count all the reasons why he shouldn’t even think about touching her breast while he conversed with her, groping away over her purple blouse like this wasn’t his niece, or we weren’t present, me and Milena’s mother and aunt. Her lashes fluttered. “Yes honey, thanks. Instead, the old man reached for the back of her head and pulled her surprised, reluctant face to his purple head, gently but inexorably, until her nose stuck to his graying curly pubes. I know we’re saving but no way, just no way, we have to turn it on.
