The garage was converted into a living room; years before Michael sat on the sofa in there, reading the dry inky pages of a celebrity gossip rag. Grandma Jude and her boyfriend Carl, sat at the dining room table. Carl smoked Winston’s and drank from cans of Budweiser. Grandma Jude smoked slims and drank diet soda mixed with freezer-kept generic vodka.

Michael listened to them argue. Grandma Jude needed her Lincoln worked on, the wheels were making noise. Carl said he would take a look, but never did. Grandma Jude was afraid of rolling through a busy intersection with no brakes. Getting T-boned and put into a hospital with a neck brace. Her hair stylist would have to visit her in the hospital room and she would have to pay her a fortune to get her looking pretty again.

Michael turned the page to find a celebrity actress and a business tycoon were photographed kissy-facing off the coast of an Italian village. Both were married to someone else. It was scandalous.