‘Those were the days,’ Miriam continues, ‘before all this Twittering and smartphone nonsense. You had to pick up a real telephone to call someone. And, if they didn’t answer—well, that was that. Adam dropped out of law school, left Mike’s firm and the prosperous career ahead of him, and holed himself up like some hibernating, beer-guzzling bear. Grew his hair and beard. We were mortified. Mike introduced him to colleagues to get career advice, even went out of his way to find one of those so-called life coaches. Heavens, there was one blind date with my hairdresser’s niece that was truly a disaster, and I couldn’t go back to my salon after that! Of course, we thought of serious help, pills and so forth. My dearest friend is a psychoanalyst and …’ She trails off. ‘I’m babbling. The point is, he didn’t want us interfering. Then he met a young man in a bar who had just returned from Alaska. It obviously triggered Adam’s adventurous spirit once again and he just picked up and left; he called us from the airport. We thought it would be the same story—he’d clear his head and come back to Chicago—but he met Stephanie and fell head over heels. But I suppose we were relieved he’d found something, someone, to bring back his smile. Didn’t imagine he’d marry her or live here so long.’

I’m letting all this new information settle as the massage chair beats a rhythm on my lower back. Just as I start formulating more questions, my grandmother asks the beautician to check if her fingernails are dry and then takes an iPad from her handbag.

‘I was going to show you Chicago, wasn’t I?’ She turns on her tablet and trawls through lots of folders. ‘I finally got all my photographs organised. What a project that was. Here.’ She hands me the iPad and I start scrolling. Picture after picture shows soaring skyscrapers and stunning architecture. Unusual angles and closeups reveal shafts of light piercing the space between buildings and weird details, like an old shoe caught in the branch of an enormous tree, leaves burnt orange by the season—things that no one would normally notice but somehow look like art.

‘These are beautiful!’ I say.

‘Adam’s the photographer.’

‘Adam?’ I’m in shock.

‘Do you call him Adam all the time? Not Dad?’

I shrug. Now it feels awkward.

But my grandmother doesn’t seem to notice. ‘He doesn’t even know I kept them, let alone uploaded them. When he was supposed to be working at the law firm, he spent all his evenings at a photography course, lunchtimes wandering around the city, camera in hand, and all his earnings on fancy equipment. Mike wasn’t impressed, of course. But I can’t believe he didn’t continue with his photography. Isn’t he talented? All my friends think so.’