Home life is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo (George Bernard Shaw)

After doing dishes they returned to the kitchen and sat with us. Uncle Tony started to prepare some heroin.

“So how did you two meet?” my mother asked.

“We met at a café,” she laughed. “He was getting a cup of coffee and I kindly informed him that the cup of coffee he was purchasing was instrumental in exploiting child slave labour in South America.”

“Kindly! Kindly might be generous.”

“Okay,” she admitted, “I was protesting with some friends outside the shop.”

“She batted the cup of coffee out of my hands,” Uncle Tony motioned.

I was shocked. “And you asked her out?”

“I demanded that she buy me a new coffee.”

Uncle Tony and Scotch laughed. It was sweet. I liked them together.

Scotch declined the needle Uncle Tony offered her before injecting it himself. Who says chivalry is dead?

“I don’t like that stuff,” Scotch said.

Senior poured an after dinner glass of Scotch for himself and left the several glasses on the table next to the bottle. My father started pouring out glasses for the table, including me when I protested.

“No thanks,” Scotch said and pushed her glass away.

“I’ll take hers,” I offered. “There’s no point in being wasteful.”

“You don’t drink?” Uncle Tony laughed.

Scotch shook her head.

“You’re kidding!”

“My mother was an alcoholic, well, my father too, but it was my mother’s abuse that affected me the most. I’ve been addicted to alcohol all my life. I’ve been clean now for nearly three years.”

“Did you hear that?” my mother asked me.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

“It’s not easy but I’m trying really hard to stay clean.”

“You don’t drink, you don’t do drugs. What do you do?” Uncle Tony asked.

Scotch pulled out a baggie of crushed green herbs. “I like to keep it all natural.”