“You kids could have died. You could have died,” she cried.

And wrapped her arms around Don’s brother euphorically. Her arms trembled with fear. Arms again. It seemed as if English women were made of nothing else. Don stared at her mother’s body and was sure that masses of flesh like that could never grow out of her.

“Go on, bring him something to eat,” ordered Don’s mother—her son pressed to her breast.

So much for family structure.

Mass shootings and misogyny are siblings, Don later read. And it’s mostly young men who go crazy. Something in their lives didn’t work out the way they’d imagined. Something to do with power. Or penis. Or because everyone didn’t fall at their feet as they imagined would happen as a result of the way they were used to being treated by their mothers. Don wasn’t surprised. She knew a thing or two about weakness. She had a brother, after all.

And a mother who didn’t particularly value any creature that lacked a penis. Nearly all the women in Don’s orbit worshipped men and boys and scorned women. They were probably ashamed to belong to the losers, because the only thing lower than women were foreign women. The only thing that linked Don and her mother seemed to be their sense of deficiency. A massive sense of loserdom that expressed itself in everything they did. Don decided very early in her life never to become a woman. At least not the kind Don knew from Rochdale and from the videos. Not the kind who distinguished herself primarily by playing up gender stereotypes with her clothes and painting her fingernails with glitter polish—victims. A man or boy, no matter how weak, would always be valued more than a woman, even if she was a professor or cyberneticist. And speaking of weak, Don’s brother had a lot of shortcomings. Beginning with his way of walking. Don’s brother always stepped forward with just the front of his foot and lurched after it with every step, giving him the aura of a complete idiot. He breathed too loudly, smacked his lips when he ate, his mouth always hung open—and

Don couldn’t remember.