We’ve always been a quiet family; even at the dinner table we don’t talk. My ma likes it that way. I sit across from her, my dad at my left. Our chewing is always soft and polite, rhythmic, with everyone meeting up at the same gait during the meal. It’s funny how that happens, but no one laughs about it. I want to laugh, but Ma says, ‘We don’t voice our enthusiasm.’

Aunt Pearl used to live with us, but she’s gone to a place they call The Home where she sits in a wheelchair. She’s learned to laugh loudly there, as if in flights of optimism. With Aunt Pearl gone, from our house, I still practise wiggling my ear at the dinner table, but only when Ma looks away.  

Tonight, we’re taking Aunt Pearl out to hear her favorite soprano at the Rejkjavik Concert Hall. The wheels of her chair make a whispery sound against the carpets that’s more familiar than the chorus of bright voices around us, celebrating with the toast of glasses and the rustle of new clothes brought out for a night at the opera. I push  the wheelchair through it and I want to hoist myself up and fly straight for the orchestra, down the burgundy aisle, but my parents are behind us, so I focus on the wheels and on Aunt Pearl’s delight at having cut out of The Home for a night.

‘Sophia!’ she cries. Her voice, once a powdery kiss, is shrill now that she’s deaf. ‘Just look at this place!’
...