"Tell me about the monster, Angela."
Angela twisted her head away, with an agonised expression on her face.
"You don't want to know, Domingo."
Domingo took her face between his hands and gently turned her back to look at him.
"I DO want to know, Angela. I really do," he said earnestly.
Angela let out a long, ragged sigh, looked down at her hands in her lap and began.
"My mother didn't like children. She had seven, and the first six were fairly close together in age one or two years between each, but I came along much later. There were fourteen years between me and my next sister. My mother was forty-seven years old when she had me. She must have been furious. Just when she thought they were all off her hands, suddenly she was saddled with another baby."
Angela paused. "She didn't l
