T3ESSAYS

The last time I felt betrayed, I was at Chinwag, a Thai-fusion restaurant in central Christchurch having dinner with my childhood friends. We sat in a booth passing drinks around while the lanterns above cast dancing red shadows on our faces. Kathy and Rebecca were back from Otago for the…

The Catholics who sold us our lot have fourteen children, which didn’t seem like overkill at first so much as midcentury optimism — that was until Steve, the paterfamilias, let slip to my dad that his children had also gone forth and multiplied. Vigorously. The brood now stood at sixteen,…