But my mother’s mother couldn’t imagine allowing Abbey, who was always unsteady on her feet even when she was moving around in her room, out of her sight without someone watching over her, and because Harry was always away from home, and because Abbey was blessed with a more capable twin, the responsibility fell quite naturally to my mother.
* * *
Once the television set arrived, my mother’s parents hardly went out. “It’s like going to the theatre in your own den,” her father would say. And it probably did feel like being out at a movie, since there were always lots of people sitting in rows staring up at the screen and the light was always turned off so that the small, grainy picture was easier to see.
The other thing that happened after the television set arrived was that Abbey’s phys
