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the outskirts of Philadelphia with good shops, near a rambling city park. I’d heard the insular, self-satisfied Preppy Handbook quality that used to bother me as a kid was changing, and I got the feeling we’d be in good company. A number of old friends had also spent their early professional lives in larger cities, where they’d had a chance to broaden their horizons a bit before returning to raise families in a child-friendly environment. The idea of embracing the best of my roots to establish the kind of happy family I felt I’d missed out on was a tempting challenge—a chance to “get it right.”
    Everything went as planned until a couple of years later, when our father died. I spent some time down in Florida with Ma while she was presiding over his last weeks in the ICU. Observing her careful consideration and poise during that rocky transition was an experience just as intense and precious as when the babies were little. Ma’s better, twin-tending side seemed to really kick in if birth or death was afoot. I knew she was getting on in years and there was no family at all nearby in Florida. There was also the unfortunate discovery that Daddy had made no provision for Ma to cope alone in their Florida house; it was mortgaged to the hilt. On impulse, knowing that none of my siblings would consider tackling the job, I asked Ma to move home. Five minutes from my house.
    And thus began Operation Ma .
    I’m the self-appointed CEO/CFO of Op Ma: a series of maneuvers we siblings design as we go, to make our mother’s years as a widow (left with suddenly limited resources and risky ideas) as comfortable and safe as possible. David is away on location many months out of the year, our three children are teenagers, and we have a temperamental old house, a dog, and two cats, one of whom, Marbles, has been with us since the earthquake and is now hanging on by a thread.
    And I am pre-menopausal.
    I voted against George Bush twice in a row. The second time, I campaigned vigorously for his opponent.
    My mother told me she was voting for Ross Perot in 2000—she doesn’t remember doing it now, and she doesn’t remember why she might have. She began watching Fox News after 9/11.
    â€”The Muslims are taking over and he’s the only one who sees how dangerous they are.
    â€”Excuse me?
    â€”They are evil, craven, and George Bush understands them.
    â€”Sure he does. He did not have a passport when he was elected. He could not name the leaders of several countries, but somehow he understands Muslims.
    â€”Susie, you don’t realize how serious this is—
    â€”Well, yes, actually, I do, Ma. That’s why I’d like to have a president with half a brain.
    When Ma helped reinstall the president in 2004, something began to unravel in me. While she communed with Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, I spent a solid two years compulsively glued to Jon Stewart and National Public Radio. Our consternation with each other increased, until things came to a head in 2006. I was in the middle of a rather tricky project, sending all three kids off on service trips to various third-world countries, and planning Eliza’s twenty-stop college tour. I had asked Ma to try and avoid any urgent disasters for a few weeks until I got through that crunch. With her uncanny sense of timing, she managed to have her Toyota impounded for expired registration and close to a thousand dollars’ worth of unpaid parking tickets.
    Ma (dressed in Bergdorf’s on credit, standing with me to pick up her car amid a sea of equally battered vehicles, taking in the long line of other dejected traffic offenders): This is something I have in common with Blacks.
    Ma was always a narcissistic driver, viewing things like Stop signs, speed limits, and No Parking zones as irritants installed and enforced with no rhyme or reason by bureaucratic pencil pushers with nothing better to do . Friends and family had