Somewhere in the stunted stretch of time between Donald Trump being elected and his first day in office my mum had a heart attack. Don’t get me wrong. He had nothing to do with it. Today is his first day in office and her second day out of hospital. Some days are better than others.

We’re sitting in the lounge room, big white bowls cradled in our laps, eating the fried rice I’ve made. The rice started out good but has ended up pretty ordinary. We’re watching a free-to-air movie, we’re not watching the live coverage of the inauguration, happening somewhere in an upside-down space where Washington’s midday is our night. After dinner I sneak outside for cigarettes I shouldn’t be having and larger sips of wine because now mum’s on the wagon, guzzling when I’m sitting right by her seems less appropriate. My partner’s asleep in the lazyboy. My mum’s knitting a blanket. She asks me which combinations of colours will work best, creating bunchy tableaus of cheap-looking balls of wool. I say yes to the pale green and a bit of white and we both say no to too much yellow.