A family’s warmth can be rebuilt through ordinary American domestic routines

Evidence

But at least her home life was better now. She saw her parents getting along in new ways. Gone was the bickering from the past, and her mother and father seemed like a couple now. They would sit up together and watch the news while eating peanuts and sipping tea. Her sister, too, was thrilled to have Lina home. Over the last fourteen months, she had videotaped all the important college basketball games and collected her favorite music videos to catch Lina up on what she’d missed. With tea, peanuts, and bad television, Lina thought they felt like a family. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 637

Categorization

• FICTION: The detail of a sister videotaping sports games and music videos to catch up a returning sibling is a rich fictional beat about devotion expressed through media curation.