"How pointless real life was! In novels, events led around something," thought Ezra, as he scanned his mother's diary. "What can you say can be your patients' most common disease?" This was what Ezra later asked of his medic sister, Jenny. "Mother-itis," Jenny replied. Their mother, Pearl, so central with their lives, yet so hard a project for any of them, passes away to be eulogised at her f