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don’t want to read the editorial online, you can call up the file. You type ‘editorials’ and then last Friday’s date—”
    â€œYou know what? You know what it is, Todd? It’s this computer. I hate it. I really hate it.”
    It was the computer—and it was much, much more. His mother wanted the Valley News to be run the way she and his father had run it when they’d taken it over from Todd’s grandfather forty years ago. All the reporters had worked on manual typewriters then. They’d smoked heavily and drunk even more heavily, and they’d run on brains and balls. His mother had run harder than anyone else, because she’d had more balls than the rest of the staff combined.
    But that was then and this was now. Todd’s father had had the good sense to retire as copublisher, but his mother was hanging on, insisting that she was essential to the functioning of the newspaper, when all she did was interfere, meddle, disagree with him and holleracross the newsroom like Heidi calling for the straying sheep to return to her Alp.
    â€œListen, Mom—why don’t you take the rest of the day off,” Todd suggested. “You can catch up with Dad. He’s probably at the fifth or sixth hole by now. You can golf the rest of the course with him. It’s a beautiful day. You shouldn’t be stuck in the office.”
    â€œI don’t want to golf. I hate golf. The only reason your father is golfing instead of working is that he’s losing his marbles. I know you’re in denial about this, Todd, but it’s true. The man has Alzheimer’s.”
    â€œHe doesn’t.”
    â€œSee what I mean? You’re in denial. This morning he forgot what to call a doorknob.”
    â€œHe never knew what to call a doorknob,” Todd argued. It was true. His father had always been noun challenged. “His doctor doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with him.”
    â€œHis doctor doesn’t live with him. Neither do you. I’m telling you, he’s losing his marbles. He’s lost at least three marbles so far, and given that he only started with maybe a dozen, that’s a lot of marbles.”
    â€œMom—”
    â€œI heard that you came out in favor of the bonds. Todd, I hate when you run editorials without checking with me first. I’m the publisher, don’t forget.”
    Emeritus, he thought, but didn’t say so. When he’d taken over the paper as publisher and editor in chief, he’d given his parents the grand-sounding title of copublishers emeritus, which he figured would be enough to send them merrily on their way into happy retirement. His father loved to golf. His mother loved to travel. He had envisioned them traveling from golf resort to golf resort for at least nine months of the year, leaving himto yank the Valley News into the twenty-first century without any flak from them.
    â€œWinfield’s growing,” he said patiently. “We need more sewer capacity.”
    â€œWinfield has gotten big enough. It ought to stop growing. That’s the editorial stand you need to take.”
    Todd might have pointed out that she considered Winfield’s growth just swell when it contributed to the increased circulation of the daily paper. More readers meant more sewers, though. People read the newspaper and went to the bathroom, frequently at the same time. Todd sensed a direct connection between ingesting news and egesting waste, and he would have been glad to explain that to her.
    But he had long ago stopped explaining anything to his mother. She believed what she chose to believe, and she believed it with all her heart. She believed his father had Alzheimer’s disease; she believed computers were evil; she believed Winfield had enough sewers.
    He didn’t want to deal with her. If Paul had been available, Todd would have phoned him and said, “Meet me at Grover’s after work