Through her window, she saw that her temporary home for the next two months left only a sliver of sidewalk for pedestrians. Her housemates were all men and they politely invited her to join them in their activities. Suddenly, she had gained eight brothers. When she received her mother’s call to warn her of her arrival, they shared her enthusiasm as if it was their own.

The day of her mother’s arrival, she cleaned, primped and polished the unkemptness out of her clothes and body, checking and rechecking her appearance.

At the airport, she saw her mother first. Though she knew herself to be changed, from punk to mainstream, it had not occurred to her that her mother could have changed too. Her mother did not recognize her, did not stop to greet her.

Once their identities were confirmed, they reunited. Sometime during the nearly two years apart, additions were made to their roles, from child and mother to adult and elder.

When she brought her mother home, her mother was rendered speechless by her housemates. Through a loophole in the language, and by some clever twists of subject, she had avoided telling her mother that her housemates were men.

Her mother tried to seem amused at how her daughter, raised with a veil obscuring her face from public eyes, could be so at ease living among eight men.

She smiled and reassured her mother that none of them had any interest in her, as all their interests were in other men.

With a jolt, her mother sat upright and, though a small elderly woman, towered over her just like an imposing edifice over a sliver of sidewalk. Perhaps, thought the daughter, not much changes after all.