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that eventually Mum made Helen apologize. Then she murmured to me, “It's nothing to be ashamed of, earning good money and putting some away.”
    It was at that point that Garv made me leave, furious that they'd upset me so. (You know the way Garv sees the good in most people? Well, he suspends such altruism around most of my family.) On the drive home, I said anxiously, “I know everything ANGELS / 27
    is relative and I know I'm not in their league, but I am neurotic, aren't I? I'm not a totally plain-vanilla, well-adjusted good girl?”
    “Of course you're neurotic,” he said stoutly. “Don't mind them!”
    However, I'm not dwelling on my family in this manner just to provide background color; there's actually a reason for it. It's because I'm about to resume living with them.
    I could have moved in with Donna except she'd recently managed to get on-again-off-again-I'll-just-get-my-head-out-of-my-arse-if-you'll-give-me-a-second Robbie to live with her, so I wasn't sure she'd welcome the presence of a third party. Or I could have asked Sinead except Dave had kicked her out and she was currently even more homeless than me. And I could have tried my best friend, Emily, who has plenty of room. The only problem is that she lives in Los Angeles. Not exactly handy.
    So, cap in hand, I have to return to the bosom of my family.
    First, though, I have to tell them why and I'm dreading it.
    Perhaps it's never easy to disappoint your parents, but in my case it feels extra difficult. I'm the one who married her first boyfriend and they've been so heartbreakingly proud of me and of the ticks beside almost every item on the checklist: the marriage, the house, the car, the job, the pension plan, the robust mental health.
    “You've never given us a moment's worry,” they've often said.
    “The only one who hasn't.” Then would follow a baleful look at whichever of my sisters was giving them grief at the time. Now, after successfully avoiding them for all those years, it was my turn for the baleful looks.
    I paused at the front door before letting myself in. Just taking a moment. Filled with a fierce need to run away, leave the country, avoid facing my atrocious failure Then, with a sigh, I shoved my key in the lock. I couldn't run away—I'm responsible and conscientious. In a family where several 28 / MARIAN KEYES
    black sheep are jockeying for position, being the sole white sheep isn't much fun.
    There was a racket coming from the television room and it sounded like all those currently domiciled in the house—Mum, Dad, Helen, and Anna—were actually present.
    Helen, at twenty-five, still lived at home because of her on-off relationship with gainful employment—she's had many career changes. Two or three years had been spent wasting time at college, and after a spell of unemployment she'd tried to be a flight attendant but couldn't manage to be pleasant enough. (“Stop ringing that fucking call bell, I heard you the first time,” was, I believe, the sentence that ended her highflying career.) More unemployment followed, then she took an expensive course as a makeup artist, but she'd hoped to work in theater and film and instead ended up doing wedding after wedding after wedding—mostly the daughters of my parents' friends. But Mum's efforts to drum up work for Helen weren't appreciated and, in high dudgeon, she told me that Helen had sworn that if she ever had to make up another six-year-old flower girl, she'd gouge her eyes out with her taupe eyeliner.
    (It wasn't clear whether she was talking about her own eyes or the flower girl's.)
    Helen's problem is that she's burdened with high intelligence coupled with an unfeasibly short attention span and she has yet to find her true calling.
    Unlike Anna, who has yet to find any calling, true or otherwise.
    She's resisted any encouragement to embark on a career path and has eked out a living waitressing, bartending, and reading tarot cards. Never for any sustained period, mind; her