Two Buttons

Bartholomea is eighty-one. Her television is older than her children. It has two buttons: one to begin, one to change the channel.

Her son wants to buy her a new one. His television is as large as a door, and it asks questions he can’t answer. Last month she watched him choose between six squares for twenty minutes, and then they watched nothing.

“Give me one reason to keep it,” her daughter says.

Bartholomea has a reason. In her life the money changed, the buses changed, and the telephones in this country changed twice. Each time, somebody young had to teach her.

At seven she has a glass of wine and presses the green button. The news begins. Nobody has to teach her that.