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then she said, “It’s not polite to ask that. It’s better to say, ‘How did your mother pass away?’”
    Devon corrected herself, her small hand giving my shoulder a reassuring pat. Then her mother
began patting my
other
shoulder. The two exchanged a conspiratorial look of shared pity. This interview was starting to make me feel
tap-tap-hae.
I turned my head away, because I couldn’t trust myself not to contort my face with displeasure. You
of all people need to worry about wrinkles.
I caught Ed Farley’s eye.
    â€œIf she doesn’t want to talk about it, she doesn’t want to talk about it,” Mr. Farley muttered before picking up the newspaper. I was surprised by his display of
nunchi.
    Thankfully, the conversation moved on to other topics. Beth settled to the floor and crossed her legs. She lectured, and I listened. She told me she was a professor of women’s studies at Mason College. (“Up for tenure next year!” she added in a strangely anxious, high-pitched tone.) I remembered seeing their ads on the subways— WHERE POETS BEC OME PARTICLE PHYSICI STS . . . AND VICE VERSA !, the tagline read—above a set of multihued youths leaping in the air. Mr. Farley taught high-school English at a prep school downtown. They had met at Columbia as graduate students in the English department. She talked about Devon’s adoption process—“We’re trying to revise the adoption rhetoric by calling it an ‘alternative birth plan’”—as well as the responsibilities that came with the au pair position.
    â€œI don’t want someone who’s just going to clock in and out each day. We want you to grow and become part of our family,” she said. “We want—”
    Devon, peeking out again from the window, called out, “Ma, I need your help. What’s the author mean by this?” Devon had completely interrupted our interview, but Beth did not tell her it was rude. Sang and Hannah always used to wave me away when they were with other adults, until I was old enough to learn not to bother them at all. Instead Beth turned her full attention to her daughter. “Let’s have a look, sweetie.” Devon brought the paper to Beth and inserted herself into her mother’s lap.
    Beth studied the page. I mean,
studied.
At first I’d thought, based on the thick white paper and colorful illustration on the cover, that it was some sort of children’s newspaper. I was wrong. The text inside was chunky, with little white space. Four minutes ticked by. (I kept making not-so-subtle glances at my watch.) I thought of what Sang would say:
You think time like some kind of luxury?
But Beth was so absorbed in her reading it was as if the rest of us weren’t even there.
    Finally she looked up. “Okay, sweetie, let’s break it down. The author refers to a ‘cultural investigation.’ What do you suppose she means by that?”
    â€œI already
know
what that
means,” Devon said impatiently. But her mother was still looking expectantly at her. “
Fine.
‘Investigation.’ It’s like when a detective goes around and starts looking for clues to solve a crime. Like this one time on
Law & Order
they were interviewing the murder victim’s parole officer—” She clamped a hand over her mouth. Beth shot her husband a look. “Ed!”
    I don’t know how I thought Ed Farley would react. But he just gave a boyish shrug of his shoulders and said, “She wandered in while it was on TV. What, you wanted me to turn our daughter away?”
    â€œAnd Daddy made me do muffin ears and face the wall whenever they did the shooting scenes,” Devon piped up, thinking she was helping their case.
    Beth shook her head. “Sometimes I don’t know what to do with your father.” She sighed. Given the rather jocular tone of the family moment, I thought she would leaven her