Circles of Confusion by April Henry Page A

ex-wife. The character doesn't know that his new wife is really his half-sister, and she has amnesia because of the coma she was in after the car accident that killed his first wife."
    To Claire's mother, TV was more than entertainment, it was a family that shared histories and connections. Maury Povich was married to Connie Chung. Mario Thomas, who had been the spunky star of That Girl! years ago, was married to Phil Donahue, who was still important even if he didn't have a talk show anymore. Fred Savage, who had been so wholesome on The Wonder Years, might now be seen beating his girlfriend to death on a "fact-based" TV movie of the week.
    Watching her mother stare mesmerized at the TV set's manufactured tribulations, Claire felt a surge of gratitude for Charlie. Even before she had met her, Claire had already been distancing herself from these TV sets, this apartment, this way of life that wanted little and expected even less, but moving in with Charlie had speeded up the process.
    Now that Claire no longer saw her mother every day, it was hard not to view her the way a stranger would. For one thing, a stranger would never guess that they were related. Claire was tall and thin, while Jean was short and nearly one hundred pounds overweight. Claire had red-gold curls; her mother's hair was currently dyed a frayed, fried blond. Claire seldom wore makeup. Her mother's mouth was a dark red Cupid's bow, outlined and filled in using colors from a makeup kit brought from a TV infomercial. The pitchster had promised that each kit was specially created for each customer. Jean had had Claire take a Polaroid of her to send to the people who custom-blended each order. The result could sometimes be frightening in the blue glow of the TV set—heavy-lidded eyes, lips so dark they were almost black, stripes of maroon blush that added false hollows to Jean's cheeks. Claire's mother looked less a vamp than an overweight vampire.
    "I don't really have time to follow the shows anymore, Mom."
    When Claire lived at home, her mother had spent every evening's commercial breaks filling her in on the big events of the daytime shows. The weird thing was that Claire had enjoyed it. "One of the reasons I came over was to ask you about Aunt Cady. I started wondering about her when I was cleaning out her trailer. Like, what did she do in the WACs? And did you ever hear anything about a boyfriend she had during the war? A guy named Rudy?"
    "By the time I was old enough to pay attention to Aunt Cady, she was already an old maid working at the bank. No makeup and too skinny. Always so serious, with her nose in a book. Men like someone they can have fun with, someone with a little meat on their bones." Jean looked up at the ceiling, thinking. "Maybe I did hear she had a little something going on before I was born, but by the time she came home he was out of the picture."
    "Do you know why they never got married? Or what happened to him?"
    "Like I said, I wasn't even born when it happened. I'm surprised that anyone would have looked at her twice. Even as a kid, you heard things about what it had been like, you know, about how the women would do anything for a Hershey bar or a cigarette." She swiveled her eyes back to the TV, where two nurses were deep in conversation. They both wore the starched white caps that Claire knew had been out of favor for fifteen years. "Do you know how many women the average man sleeps with in his lifetime?"
    "What? What's your source on this?"
    "Geraldo."
    "The man who put fat from his butt into his forehead?"
    "Seven. The answer is seven. Don't you find that interesting?"
    "Very." Her mother didn't seem to notice the sarcasm.
    TVZTRU
     

Chapter 12
    The sputtering roar of the unmuffled engine of a car pulling up outside was loud enough to make it difficult to hear the TV.
    "There's your sister."
    A few seconds later, Susie walked in. She shrugged off her rabbit- fur coat, revealing the yellow-, orange-, and brown-striped