After the incident, which, we remember, was euphemistically described as a mass shooting, when Karen’s superficial wounds were being treated at the hospital, she had tried to imagine how surviving the shooting would fundamentally change the structure of her family. How she’d leave the hospital and her mother and brothers would be standing there, and they’d all hug, and then go together to McDonald’s. Tears, hugs, and so on. That didn’t happen. Karen didn’t like to go out in the street on her own. Even though it was all she had ever known, now it bothered her to be gaped at all the time. It felt as if the stares were boring through her skin and into her organs. Stares. Scornful, disgusted, horrified, disapproving. Karen looked different.

She wore bifocals and could have used braces. Nobody around here had braces. Or good teeth. A lot of people had no teeth at all. Rochdale was a place where nobody sculpted their bodies with plastic surgery or in fitness studios, and there were a thousand forms of neglect to marvel at,