Day after day I went through the ­paternal motions, testing my son while he tested me, trying to teach him not only to do what I said, which seems like a given, but also to see and taste the world in certain ways, with an ideal in mind, a purified vision of the best way to live reduced to a rudimentary, five-year-old version: good eye contact with others, a sustained gaze, not just looking, but giving an indication of having seen—a head nod—and maintained long enough to show respect and not too much fear.

Disclaimer: Nothing in this story is true. All of the characters in this story are products of the writer’s imagination. Any likeness of these characters and the situation described herein to those in real life are purely coincidental.

I used to write stories that had lakes, that had deep blue waters shelled by the sky; water mucky and full of disease; I wrote stories where people used to break down and cry unbidden