Mary opened her eyes.
"Honestly," Mrs. Cuberle said to a woman sitting beside her, "you'd think they'd try to get something else. We might as well go to the museum and watch the first landing on Mars. The Mayoraka Disaster—really!"
The woman replied without distracting her eyes from the magazine page. "It's the doctor's idea. Psychological."
Mrs. Cuberle opened her mouth and moved her head up and down knowingly.
"Ohhh. I should have known there was some reason. Still, who watches it?"
"The children do. Makes them think, makes them grateful or something."
"Ohhh."
"Psychological."
Mary picked up a magazine and leafed through the pages. All photographs, of women and men. Women like Mother and like the others in the room; slender, tanned, shapely, beautiful women; and men with large muscles and shiny hair. Women and men, all looking alike, all perfect and beautiful. She folded the magazine and wondered how to answer the questions that would be asked.
"Mother—"