ad melded together in Tania's absence to form some version of a cohesive family. It was just as well. Tania had wanted nothing more than to escape the constant dance of evading debt collectors, making shady arrangements for cars or scrap metal to be picked up or dropped off at this or that location, and the constant borrowing and lending of money that seemed to define the extended family of late. It was true that times were, and had been, hard for a lot of people. But Jesus. Maybe if someone could try to just get a normal job?
All of these were odd thoughts for Tania given where she had landed. It was still an adjustment, looking at her parents through fresh eyes, adult eyes that no longer regarded them as infallible purveyors of Truth, fighting the good fight against the system, against the neighbors, against the struggle for money and status and things. No, Tania was officially a realist, and saw, for the first time, how difficult they had made things for themselves, and, she supposed, everyone.
Another thing that struck her about the strangeness of her new situation was the feeling of living in a parallel universe. One where she was tracking people down for debts, catching them in their most desperate, stupid actions, laying out their sins to bare. She had grown up surrounded by schemes and conflicts, "so-and-so screwing me over, cheating me out of..." When she thought about it, it made sense that she had fallen into her new line of work, as familiar as she had become with the unsavory elements of human enterprise. It was in a sense, a natural fit.