Memory Of My Dad Quotes

My dad had limitations. That's what my good-hearted mom always told us. He had limitations, but he meant no harm. It was kind of her to say, but he did do harm.

I've apparently been the victim of growing up, which apparently happens to all of us at one point or another. It's been going on for quite some time now, without me knowing it. I've found that growing up can mean a lot of things. For me, it doesn't mean I should become somebody completely new and stop loving the things I used to love. It means I've just added more things to my list. Like for example, I'm still beyond obsessed with the winter season and I still start putting up strings of lights in September. I still love sparkles and grocery shopping and really old cats that are only nice to you half the time. I still love writing in my journal and wearing dresses all the time and staring at chandeliers. But some new things I've fallen in love with -- mismatched everything. Mismatched chairs, mismatched colors, mismatched personalities. I love spraying perfumes I used to wear when I was in high school. It brings me back to the days of trying to get a close parking spot at school, trying to get noticed by soccer players, and trying to figure out how to avoid doing or saying anything uncool, and wishing every minute of every day that one day maybe I'd get a chance to win a Grammy. Or something crazy and out of reach like that. ;) I love old buildings with the paint chipping off the walls and my dad's stories about college. I love the freedom of living alone, but I also love things that make me feel seven again. Back then naivety was the norm and skepticism was a foreign language, and I just think every once in a while you need fries and a chocolate milkshake and your mom. I love picking up a cookbook and closing my eyes and opening it to a random page, then attempting to make that recipe. I've loved my fans from the very first day, but they've said things and done things recently that make me feel like they're my friends -- more now than ever before. I'll never go a day without thinking about our memories together.

This guy in high school tried to run me over with his dad’s SUV. Bad shoved the vehicle through a store window.” The memory brought a smile to my face.

I’m older now than my dad was when he was my age. Wait, that’s not right. That’s not my dad at all, that’s just some stranger hanging around in my memory.


Did he show himself?” Nash asked, and I glanced to my right to see him staring at my father, as fascinated as I was. My dad nodded. “He was an arrogant little demon.” “So what happened?” I asked. “I punched him.” For a moment, we stared at him in silence. “You punched the reaper?” I asked, and my hand fell from the strainer onto the edge of the sink. “Yeah.” He chuckled at the memory, and his grin brought out one of my own. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen my father smile. “Broke his nose.

...some nights I'd sneak out and listen to the radio in my Dad's old Chevy - children need solitude - they don't teach that in school...

Blaire, This was my grandmother’s. My father’s mother. She came to visit me before she passed away. I have fond memories of her visits and when she passed on she left this ring to me. In her will I was told to give it to the woman who completes me. She said it was given to her by my grandfather who passed away when my dad was just a baby but that she’d never loved another the way she’d loved him. He was her heart. You are mine. This is your something old. I love you, Rush

Dad, one of my first memories is of sharing my worry with you about the space shuttle poking holes in the atmosphere and letting out all of Earth's air.

To the most inconsiderate asshole of a friend, I’m writing you this letter because I know that if I say what I have to say to your face I will probably punch you. I don’t know you anymore. I don’t see you anymore. All I get is a quick text or a rushed e-mail from you every few days. I know you are busy and I know you have Bethany, but hello? I’m supposed to be your best friend. You have no idea what this summer has been like. Ever since we were kids we pushed away every single person that could possibly have been our friend. We blocked people until there was only me and you. You probably haven’t noticed, because you have never been in the position I am in now. You have always had someone. You always had me. I always had you. Now you have Bethany and I have no one. Now I feel like those other people that used to try to become our friend, that tried to push their way into our circle but were met by turned backs. I know you’re probably not doing it deliberately just as we never did it deliberately. It’s not that we didn’t want anyone else, it’s just that we didn’t need them. Sadly now it looks like you don’t need me anymore. Anyway I’m not moaning on about how much I hate her, I’m just trying to tell you that I miss you. And that well . . . I’m lonely. Whenever you cancel nights out I end up staying home with Mum and Dad watching TV. It’s so depressing. This was supposed to be our summer of fun. What happened? Can’t you be friends with two people at once? I know you have found someone who is extra special, and I know you both have a special “bond,” or whatever, that you and I will never have. But we have another bond, we’re best friends. Or does the best friend bond disappear as soon as you meet somebody else? Maybe it does, maybe I just don’t understand that because I haven’t met that “somebody special.” I’m not in any hurry to, either. I liked things the way they were. So maybe Bethany is now your best friend and I have been relegated to just being your “friend.” At least be that to me, Alex. In a few years time if my name ever comes up you will probably say, “Rosie, now there’s a name I haven’t heard in years. We used to be best friends. I wonder what she’s doingnow; I haven’t seen or thought of her in years!” You will sound like my mum and dad when they have dinner parties with friends and talk about old times. They always mention people I’ve never even heard of when they’re talking about some of the most important days of their lives. Yet where are those people now? How could someone who was your bridesmaid 20 years ago not even be someone who you are on talking terms with now? Or in Dad’s case, how could he not know where his own best friend from college lives? He studied with the man for five years! Anyway, my point is (I know, I know, there is one), I don’t want to be one of those easily forgotten people, so important at the time, so special, so influential, and so treasured, yet years later just a vague face and a distant memory. I want us to be best friends forever, Alex. I’m happy you’re happy, really I am, but I feel like I’ve been left behind. Maybe our time has come and gone. Maybe your time is now meant to be spent with Bethany. And if that’s the case I won’t bother sending you this letter. And if I’m not sending this letter then what am I doing still writing it? OK I’m going now and I’m ripping these muddled thoughts up. Your friend, Rosie

Leaning against my father, the sadness finally broke open inside me, hollowing out my heart and leaving me bleeding. My feet felt rooted in the dirt. There were more than two bodies buried here. Pieces of me that I didn’t even know were under the ground. Pieces of dad, too.

My real mom died when I was born—hemorrhaged to death while giving birth to me, which has never been one of my favorite memories—and Dad married Denise before I’d turned a year. Without even asking my opinion on the matter. Denise and I never really clicked.

My mind was quickly consumed with thoughts of my girlfriend and all the good times we had had, like one of those cheesy montages ni eighties movies, when the angsty protagonist envisions himself and his ex holding hands on the beach, feeding a small puppy, getting into some kind of zany wrestling match with whipped cream. I interrupted my cliché memories by saying aloud: "Ugh, I'm feeling pretty low about this whole thing." "You just gotta try to put it out of your head," he said, folding the paper halfway down to look at me. "I know, it's just hard. I mean, I still have stuff at her place. What am I going to do about that? I still have a TV...," I said. "Fuck the TV. Leave the TV. Cut your ties." "It's a fifteen-hundred-dollar TV," I insisted. "Go get that fucking TV.

One night I heard my dad say to my mom: I can't help but think of the good times we're having now as being painful memories later on. And my mom saying, c'mon now honey.

Mom said, "His spirit is there," and that made me really angry. I told her, "Dad didn't have a spirit! He had cells!" "His memory is there." "His memory is here," I said, pointing at my head. "Dad had a spirit," she said, like she was rewinding a bit in our conversation. I told her, "He had cells, and now they're on rooftops, and in the river, and in the lungs of millions of people around New York, who breathe him every time they speak!

I had let down my shields, that was the problem. The crazy inside Dad had infected me, weakened me so that when Finn smiled, I'd been vulnerable. I'd dropped my shields and let myself pretend that somebody like Finn would want to be with somebody like me.

I’d given him bits and pieces of my peculiar life, but colored softer and funnier than they had been. I’d painted my dad as Don Quixote in a semi, on a quest for philosophical truths and the best cup of coffee in the nation.

My mom says, "Do you know what the AIDS memorial quilt is all about?" Jump to how much I hate my brother at this moment. I bought this fabric because I thought it would make a nice panel for Shane," Mom says. "We just ran into some problems with what to sew on it." Give me amnesia. Flash. Give me new parents. Flash. Your mother didn't want to step on any toes," Dad says. He twists a drumstick off and starts scraping the meat onto a plate. "With gay stuff you have to be so careful since everything means something in secret code. I mean, we didn't want to give people the wrong idea." My Mom leans over to scoop yams onto my plate, and says, "Your father wanted a black border, but black on a field of blue would mean Shane was excited by leather sex, you know, bondage and discipline, sado and masochism." She says, "Really, those panels are to help the people left behind." Strangers are going to see us and see Shane's name," my dad says. "We didn't want them thinking things." The dishes all start their slow clockwise march around the table. The stuffing. The olives. The cranberry sauce. "I wanted pink triangles but all the panels have pink triangles," my mom says. "It's the Nazi symbol for homosexuals." She says,"Your father suggested black triangles, but that would mean Shane was a lesbian. It looks like female pubic hair. The black triangle does." My father says, "Then I wanted a green border, but it turns out that would mean Shane was a male prostitute." My mom says, "We almost chose a red border, but that would mean fisting. Brown would mean either scat or rimming, we couldn't figure which." Yellow," my father says, "means watersports." A lighter shade of blue," Mom says, "would mean just regular oral sex." Regular white," my father says, "would mean anal. White could also mean Shane was excited by men wearing underwear." He says, "I can't remember which." My mother passes me the quilted chicken with the rolls still warm inside. We're supposed to sit and eat with Shane dead all over the table in front of us. Finally we just gave up," my mom says, "and I made a nice tablecloth out of the material." Between the yams and the stuffing, Dad looks down at his plate and says, "Do you know about rimming?" I know it isn't table talk. And fisting?" my mom asks. I say, I know. I don't mention Manus and his vocational porno magazines. We sit there, all of us around a blue shroud with the turkey more like a big dead baked animal than ever, the stuffing chock full of organs you can still recognize, the heart and gizzard and liver, the gravy thick with cooked fat and blood. The flower centerpiece could be a casket spray. Would you pass the butter, please?" my mother says. To my father she says, "Do you know what felching is?

Grandma and I just sat there. We didn't say a word, but I knew what she was thinking. Bobby Ray's dead and Saigon has surrendered. Just like that. Her only boy and my only Dad, out there in the ground behind Wesley Memorial Methodist Church.

Every moment of our lives we make choices. Most we don’t even know we’re making, they’re so dull or routine or automatic. Some are beyond explanation—like my mom choosing Wyatt’s memory over Dad and me.

Yeah, I went with my dad when I was little, before he left.” I’m too caught up in the memory to process what I’m saying, but the word “dad” feels weird on my tongue.

Dad says that the world is always changing, every second of every day, and so is everything in it, which means that the you you are right now is different from the you you were when you started reading this sentence. Crazy, right? And your memories change, too. (For instance, I swear the teddy bear I had growing up was green, but according to my parents it was orange.) But when you take a photograph, things stay still. The way that they were, is the way that they are, is the way that they will always be.

I love salmon. Of all my fishy friends, I love salmon the best. Or trout. Or tuna. Or smelts. Oh heck. I love them ALL! But I have such fond memories of salmon. See, my dad was a fisherman. I mean a fanatic fisherman. Fishing was probably what he liked to do most (along with gardening and riding horses and camping in the Sierra and bowling and… ) But honestly, folks, fishing was probably the winner for leisure-time activities.

All my life my dad felt this need to protect his kids from a war he fought, a war I believed could never reach out and touch us, could never hurt us—and yet he fed us lies with his answers, shielding us from the truth about what he did there, about what he saw, about who he was before the war, and about what he became because of it. He lied to protect us from his memories, from his nightmares. Standing with my dad at The Wall, I knew the truth—no one could know so many names engraved in granite if he 'never was in danger.

Dad used to read aloud to us from Dickens and Kipling. My tastes were omnivorous. I read anything I could lay my hands on, but the memory that stays with me is that of my father reading the Jungle Books to us when we were young. Beautiful stories!

I do love it. That big, demonstrative moment where nothing else matters but making sure the person you care about knows it. That you’re in. You’re all in and you want everyone to know, no matter how wild or risky it is. Weddings are like that. The vows are, at least.” Something about the soft look in Annie’s eyes, wistful almost, compelled him to keep going. To confess what he’d never told anyone before. “I don’t have a single memory of my mom and dad saying I love you to each other.” Annie made a soft noise, but he soldiered on, wanting to get this out. “Maybe those movies aren’t perfect, but for most of my life, they were the best proof I had that people could wind up happy together.

I asked my dad what people would remember sooner, the things I said or the things I did. His response was: Forgive me, but what people?

As I was walking up the stairs to my dad's old room, and I was looking at the old photographs, I started thinking that there was a time when these weren't memories

As I enlarged my vision to see the bigger picture of my dad’s full life, I was better able to let go of being stuck in memories of its end.

Bobby Ray's dead and Saigon has surrendered. Just like that. Her only boy and my only Dad, out there in the ground behind Wesley Memorial Methodist Church.

The sea is intriguing and exciting. It always reinforces in me a sense of belonging. The waves bring with them a strange kind of peace and calm. The sea has been a silent spectator to many major incidents in my life. The many outings with friends and family; the long walks on the shore with dad, my hero and philosopher; the moments spent with my love, the memories are endless.

Gracie's father was an engineer, her mother an accountant. I couldn't picture either one of them yelling or throwing things or having affairs. I could see my dad doing stuff like that. Trish sure did. But Dad carried a war in his skull, and Trish was a drunk. Gracie's parents didn't have anything like that to deal with, but their daughter was falling apart on the bathroom floor.

I have a memory-flash of something Dawn said in a family-therapy session, right before my dad spilt–He's calm but wrong, and I'm loud but right, but since he's calm, it always seems like he's right.

My dad might’ve been a liar, a philanderer, and a traveling businessman, but I didn’t have a single memory of feeling truly alone as a kid. My parents were always there, and home was always my safe place.

I feel completely embarrassed and remember the lock on the door and think: He knows, he knows, it shows, shows completely. “He’s out back,” Mr. Garret tells me mildly, “unpacking shipments.” Then he returns to the papers. I feel compelled to explain myself. “I just thought I’d come by. Before babysitting. You, know, at your house. Just to say hi. So . . . I’m going to do that now. Jase’s in back, then? I’ll just say hi.” I’m so suave. I can hear the ripping sound of the box cutter before I even open the rear door to find Jase with a huge stack of cardboard boxes. His back’s to me and suddenly I’m as shy with him as I was with his father. This is silly. Brushing through my embarrassment, I walk up, put my hand on his shoulder. He straightens up with a wide grin. “Am I glad to see you!” “Oh, really?” “Really. I thought you were Dad telling me I was messing up again. I’ve been a disaster all day. Kept knocking things over. Paint cans, our garden display. He finally sent me out here when I knocked over a ladder. I think I’m a little preoccupied.” “Maybe you should have gotten more sleep,” I offer. “No way,” he says. Then we just gaze at each other for a long moment. For some reason, I expect him to look different, the way I expected I would myself in the mirror this morning . . . I thought I would come across richer, fuller, as happy outside as I was inside, but the only thing that showed was my lips puffy from kisses. Jase is the same as ever also. “That was the best study session I ever had,” I tell him. “Locked in my memory too,” he says, then glances away as though embarrassed, bending to tear open another box. “Even though thinking about it made me hit my thumb with a hammer putting up a wall display.” “This thumb?” I reach for one of his callused hands, kiss the thumb. “It was the left one.” Jase’s face creases into a smile as I pick up his other hand. “I broke my collarbone once,” he tells me, indicating which side. I kiss that. “Also some ribs during a scrimmage freshman year.” I do not pull his shirt up to where his finger points now. I am not that bold. But I do lean in to kiss him through the soft material of his shirt. “Feeling better?” His eyes twinkle. “In eighth grade, I got into a fight with this kid who was picking on Duff and he gave me a black eye.” My mouth moves to his right eye, then the left. He cups the back of my neck in his warm hands, settling me into the V of his legs, whispering into my ear, “I think there was a split lip involved too.” Then we are just kissing and everything else drops away. Mr. Garret could come out at any moment, a truck full of supplies could drive right on up, a fleet of alien spaceships could darken the sky, I’m not sure I’d notice.

I now have memories attached to it, to help fill it up. Of my dad’s soft chuckle carrying through the perpetual silence, of the smell of his fresh-brewed coffee in the morning, of the sound of the floors creaking as he pads down the hallway after saying good night to me. Such little things—tiny, trivial slivers of his life that shouldn’t count as memories

He ran his hand from my wrist up to the crook of my elbow and then to my shoulder. “When I was a little kid, my dad would come to my room at night to say a prayer with me. He used to say, ‘Lord, We know there’s a little girl out there who’s meant for Henry. Please protect her and raise her up right.’” His voice changed to something slower and more country when he mimicked his dad. He smiled at the memory, and then he put his mouth near my ear and whispered. “You were that little girl.

When my grandpa died, I had this same fear. I love Grandpa so much. He was Mom's dad, and he was my favorite person in the whole world. He lived up north, between Grayling and the Mackinaw Bridge. He had, like, twenty acres. He had horses and dirt bike and all this awesome stuff. I'd go up there for weeks at a time during the summers, and he'd let me do whatever I wanted. We'd go hunting and fishing and four-wheeling, and I'd stay up till midnight every night. Then one day, he died. All of a sudden, just like that that. I cried for days. Dad kicked the shit out of me for crying, but I didn't care. I loved Grandpa, and he was gone. Then, like a month after he'd died, I had this panic attack. I couldn't remember what he looked like. I thought it meant I didn't love him, or that I'd forgotten about him. It was the only time Dad was anything like helpful. He told me you have to forget what they look like. Otherwise, you can't learn to live without them. Forgetting is your brain's way of telling you it's time to try and move on. Not forget who they were, just...keep living.

for there were times I caught them staring at me curiously. I never told them about my past or shared personal information. They knew nothing of Savannah or my dad or my friendship with Tony. Those memories were mine and mine alone, for I’d learned that some things are best kept secret. In

I put the issue from my mind. My mother had taken up the cause. She was strong. She had built that business, with all those people working for her, and it dwarfed my father’s business, and all the other businesses in the whole town; she, that docile woman, had a power in her the rest of us couldn’t contemplate. And Dad. He had changed. He was softer, more prone to laugh. The future could be different from the past. Even the past could be different from the past, because my memories could change: I no longer remembered Mother listening in the kitchen while Shawn pinned me to the floor, pressing my windpipe. I no longer remembered her looking away.

The only thing that stood out in my memory was when the pediatric nurse placed Layla’s semi-naked body under my T-shirt, against my skin. During those few brief minutes the hurt I felt in my heart temporarily dissipated. I sighed deeply when Layla squirmed contentedly as she soaked up my warmth when I cradled her protectively against me. Then, when I felt her little heart beating close to mine through her teeny bony chest, I choked up with the indescribable distress I felt, and my tears fell

The memory of human blood manifests now as a kind of visceral reaction to seeing people's veins and their necks. The skin on a neck appears to me as different from the skin anywhere else on a body. It seems as thin and consumable as rice paper wrapped around a sweet. It is too blank compared with skin everywhere else, as though it is asking to have marks made on it, like very expensive calligraphy paper, or cold-pressed Fabriano. Often, I wonder whether the urge I have to make art is the same as the urge to consume and destroy the blankness of a human neck. While at art college, I read that the best paper used by artists in the seventeenth century was made from the skins of lamb fetuses. This skin was soft and absorbent, and had an even texture right across its surface. For a long time, the process of creating art has been linked to the killing of living things. My dad, even, used fine silk stretched across wooden frames in his own work as a painter. Once, when we still had some of his pieces, I looked at the odd geometric shapes he created on a huge sheet and thought about all the silkworms who had had their cocoons torn open before they were able to become moths.

. . . kinda had to after I got tangled in a chandelier my first night home. Seriously? Sophie cracked up as she tried to imagine that. Oh, it was way more humiliating than what you’re thinking, he told her, sharing his actual memories of the way the strings of crystals seemed to wrap around him like sparkly tentacles. How did you even manage to do that? she wondered. No idea. I was just trying to get upstairs and I launched myself too high, and then my sleeve got caught and I tried to untangle it and next thing I knew Biana was collapsed on the floor in a fit of giggles and my dad was calling for the gnomes. It took five of them to free me. They had to stand on each other’s shoulders in a giant gnome stack. Sophie was laughing so hard that Sandor peeked his head into her room, probably making sure she wasn’t losing her mind. I wish I’d been there, she told Fitz.

I like to travel because that is what my Dad thought me. Even though he's not here anymore, he's always with me when I travel.

My dad—Victoria’s grandfather, “Poppa Jim”, as she called him—is forever waist-deep in the warm water of the harbour, holding a body.

When you ask most people to reflect on their very first memory, the recollections usually fall within a range of familiar vignettes—that first game of catch with Mom or Dad, playing with a beloved stuffed animal or favorite toy, or watching Saturday morning cartoons. My first memory is shooting that McDonald’s commercial. I can’t remember anything before the start of my career.

As soon as I say the words, I know they were the right ones. My eyes dip down to Dad’s memorial plaque. Truth doesn’t lie in the heart of fortune… it’s under Triumph Towers, where the labs are.

Was he a good father?" To their surprise, I shake my head and smile. "No," I reply candidly. "He wasn't a good father, but he was a good man." Where Dad came from, that meant a great deal more.

I’m fading, Bethany, I know it. I think that’s what happened to my dad, that’s why I can’t see him. One day I’ll be so see-through that you’ll forget I was ever here, just like everyone else has.

We were talking about my dad, remembering him as vividly as possible as possible because we knew we weren’t going to get any knew memories. We were holding on to the old ones as tightly as we could.

After that, Mrs. Hansen stopped visiting. Mom receded from a lot of my memories and Dad came in clearer focus, making breakfast in Mom’s place, driving me to school on the days it rained. When Mom showed up, she was a force, sparkling at dinner parties, running around the kitchen cooking four-course dinners, but it seemed to cost her. She stayed at that level—50 percent of her—for a couple months.

I know that I brought this all on myself. I know that I deserve this. I’d do anything not to be this way. I’d do anything to make it up to everyone. And to not have to see a psychiatrist, who explains to me about being “passive aggressive.” And to not have to take the medicine he gives me, which is too expensive for my dad. And to not have to talk about bad memories with him. Or be nostalgic about bad things.

Hating, hating, hating, that’s all I ever hear. People are never just people. No, everybody’s a faggot or a dyke or a nigger or a dirty Jew or a goddamn liberal or something.” She clenched her fists and pressed them to her temples. “Oh, Jesus, I’m so sick of it. And now you’re willing to forget everything that was good about Lissa and despise her memory just because she had something inside that made her love women instead of men?” Eyes ablaze: “Is that the kind of person you are?

When you don't have something anymore, you learn to live without it." That's what my dad told me that first night after he found me sleeping inside a closet underneath a pile of my mom's clothes. All the different smells of her were still there and the memories were alive even if she wasn't. I looked up into his face and wondered why would I ever want to learn to live without her? That felt like she really would be gone forever, and I wanted to limp on the broken piece of me so I could feel her there all the time.

I thought, Dad. Could I go to Vietnam for you? Dad, I could do it. I could do it for you. I could go to the places you fought. I could find the bits and pieces of your heart and soul left behind. If I bring them back, would it heal your pain? Dad, you gave me life. You made possible every good thing in my life. Why do you insist on fighting your nightmares and memories and monsters alone? You don’t have to do it alone, Dad. I could help you fight. Dad, you know what? I’ll be back before you find out so you don’t have to be afraid. I’m going to Vietnam.

I know Dad killed himself because of me. Mom thinks that his recent jail stint tipped him over the edge, that his many chemical imbalances caught up with him. Now I keep searching for happiness so I don’t end up like he did. I learn about this town called Happy in Texas and think about how that must be the greatest place to live. I teach myself how to say and read and write happy in Spanish, German, Italian, and even Japanese but I would have to draw that last one out. I discover the happiest animal in the world, the quokka. He’s a cheeky little bastard that’s always smiling. But it’s not enough. The memories are still rattling around my head, twisting into me like a knife. I don’t want to wait around to see what comes next for me in this tragic story I’m living. I open up one of my father’s unused razors and cut into my wrist like he did, slit in a curve until it smiles so everyone will know I died for happiness. I was expecting relief but instead it’s the saddest pain I’ve ever experienced. I never once stop feeling empty or unworthy of anyone’s rescue, not even when the thin line on my wrist makes everything go red. I

I wander into dad's room. "Can i sleep with you?" I ask. On these nights i crawl into his bed. He curls his giant body around mine. Sometimes he holds my hair to his face and weeps and mutters thick-sounding nonsense in his sleep. I think i would do anything to make him stop being sad.

Dad?' All at once I remembered that long-gone afternoon from the Pause when Joe took me to the yellow house and we stood in our parents' old bedroom and waited for our father. I had never told anyone about that day, and I did not tell Caroline now. The memory felt like a small, terrible bomb I was holding in my hands.

There is humility in confession. A recognition of flaws. To hear myself say out loud these shameful secrets meant I acknowledged my flaws. I also for the first time was given the opportunity to contextualize anew the catalogue of beliefs and prejudices, simply by exposing them to another, for the first time hearing the words ‘Yes, but have you looked at it this way?’ This was a helpful step in gaining a new perspective on my past, and my past was a significant proportion of who I believed myself to be. It felt like I had hacked into my own past. Unravelled all the erroneous and poisonous information I had unconsciously lived with and lived by and with necessary witness, the accompaniment of another man, reset the beliefs I had formed as a child and left unamended through unnecessary fear. Suddenly my fraught and freighted childhood became reasonable and soothed. ‘My mum was doing her best, so was my dad.’ Yes, people made mistakes but that’s what humans do, and I am under no obligation to hoard these errors and allow them to clutter my perception of the present. Yes, it is wrong that I was abused as a child but there is no reason for me to relive it, consciously or unconsciously, in the way I conduct my adult relationships. My perceptions of reality, even my own memories, are not objective or absolute, they are a biased account and they can be altered. It is possible to reprogram your mind. Not alone, because a tendency, a habit, an addiction will always reassert by its own invisible momentum, like a tide. With this program, with the support of others, and with this mysterious power, this new ability to change, we achieve a new perspective, and a new life.

I had a hamster or a gerbil or something when I was a kid. Then I forgot about it." He waited for the familiar pang that usually came with childhood memories, but it wasn’t there. Interesting. "I think my mom released it." Still no pang. "My mom sometimes forgets my dad at the store." Cam shrugged. Remy cracked up. "Does she ever release him into the wild?

Silveny's pregnant,' Sophie told her friends when she joined them for breakfast. Fitz dropped his fork. 'Are you sure?' 'Oh yeah,' Sophie mumbled, sinking into the chair next to him. 'She showed me...' 'GAH!' everyone said. Keefe pushed his plate away. 'I'm done with food forever.' 'Me too,' Dex agreed. 'Me three,' Biana said. 'Seriously, that is one batch of memories you do not have to show me,' Fitz told Sophie. 'I don't care if it's part of our Cognate training.' 'But it's still huge,' Biana added. 'Do you know how far along she is?' 'I'm guessing it's new, since the last few times I transmitted to her she didn't mention anything about--' 'STOP!' Keefe held up his hands. 'Ground rules for this conversation: All talk of alicorn baby-making is off the table--got it? Otherwise I'll have to rip my ears off. And for the record, I do not want to be there when Baby Glitterbutt arrives.' 'Me either,' Fitz said. 'My dad made me go to the Hekses' unicorn preserve for a delivery one time.' He shuddered. 'Who knew they came out so slimy?' 'Ew, dude, I did not need to know that. Can we talk about something else? Anything else?' 'Does anyone know how long alicorns stay pregnant?' Sophie asked. Biana shook her head. 'We've never had a baby alicorn before. But I'm pretty sure unicorns are pregnant for eleven months. So maybe it's the same?' 'Do you think Silveny knows?' Fitz asked. 'If her instincts are telling her she's pregnant, maybe they'll also tell her how it's going to work.' 'I guess I can ask. It was hard to get information out of her. All she wanted to tell me about was--' 'STOP!' Keefe said. 'I wasn't going to say that. She was telling me that she's really hungry. I'm not sure if it's a pregnancy craving or an excuse to get more treats, but she went on and on about how she needs more swizzlespice. We'll have to find a way to let Jurek know. 'Do you think he already knows?' Fitz asked. 'He's the equestrian caretaker at the Sanctuary. Maybe he...saw stuff.' 'WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT THE GROUND RULES?' Keefe shouted, covering his ears. 'That's it, this conversation is officially over. Next person who says "alicorn" is getting pelted with fruit.' 'What's wrong with the alicorns?' Granite asked behind them. He'd arrived with Mr. Forkle, each of them carrying stacks of scrolls. 'Silveny's pregnant," Sophie said, and all the scrolls went THUNK! 'Are you certain?' Granite whispered, bending to gather the uncurling paper. Sophie nodded, and Mr. Forkle rushed to her side. 'Tell me everything.' 'And I'm out!' Keefe said, covering his ears and singing, 'LALALALALA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!' as he raced up the stairs to the boys' tree house.

Before we returned to Harvard, I convinced my parents to take a detour to Niagara Falls. The mood in the car was heavy, and at first I regretted having suggested the diversion, but the moment Dad saw the falls he was transformed, elated. I had a camera. Dad had always hated cameras but when he saw mine his eyes shone with excitement. “Tara! Tara!” he shouted, running ahead of me and Mother. “Get yourself a picture of this angle. Ain’t that pretty!” It was as if he realized we were making a memory, something beautiful we might need later. Or perhaps I’m projecting, because that was how I felt. There are some photos from today that might help me forget the grove, I wrote in my journal. There’s a picture of me and Dad happy, together. Proof that’s possible.

The undocumented immigrants who died on 9/11 worked in restaurants, in housekeeping, in security. They were also deliverymen. The 9/11 Memorial and Museum now stands where the Twin Towers once stood. They have an exhibit that gutted me when I saw it. It’s a bicycle, presumed to have belonged to a deliveryman, a bike that was left tied to a pole near the Twin Towers. Visitors to the site had left acrylic flowers—red, white, and blue roses and carnations. They also left a rosary on the bicycle. It became a makeshift memorial. There was a note on the street next to the bike. EN MEMORIA DE LOS DELIVERY BOYS QUE MURIERON. SEPT 11 2001. “In memory of the delivery boys who died.” Delivery boys. That’s how I know it was the delivery boys who put up that sign, who left those acrylic flowers, men like my dad.

I take a deep breath as I realise I’m left with two options. I can take Nina to see a professional, and potentially subject her to more psychological trauma as they encourage her to unlock her repressed memories. Or we continue as we are, with me trying to keep her away from stressful situations. I decide to protect my little girl myself. I can’t risk unlocking the box she has consigned her dad’s abuse to.

I know that I brought this all on myself. I know that I deserve this. I'd do anything not to be this way. I'd do anything to make it up to everyone. And to not have to see a psychiatrist, who explains to me about being 'passive aggressive'. And to not have to take the medicine he gives me, which is too expensive for my dad. And to not have to talk about bad memories with him. Or be nostalgic about bad things.

A few months into our relationship, we had a campout down at my dad’s place. There were a lot of people from church, and we played games and fished into the night. We all gathered around a huge campfire, ate dinner, and sang songs together. Missy was clinging all over me, mainly because she was scared of everything flying in the air or crawling on the ground. It was one of those nights when you feel closer to God and everyone else because of the setting and the ambience--despite the bug activity. That was the first time we said “I love you” to each other. Now, there is still an ongoing debate as to who said it first. I remember clearly that she whispered, “I love you,” and then I responded. She is convinced that I said it first, but she was under the influence of bug paranoia. I believe her condition affected her memory.

Close your eyes and stare into the dark. My father's advice when I couldn't sleep as a little girl. He wouldn't want me to do that now but I've set my mind to the task regardless. I'm staring beyond my closed eyelids. Though I lie still on the ground, I feel perched at the highest point I could possibly be; clutching at a star in the night sky with my legs dangling above cold black nothingness. I take one last look at my fingers wrapped around the light and let go. Down I go, falling, then floating, and, falling again, I wait for the land of my life. I know now, as I knew as that little girl fighting sleep, that behind her gauzed screen of shut-eye, lies colour. It taunts me, dares me to open my eyes and lose sleep. Flashes of red and amber, yellow and white speckle my darkness. I refuse to open them. I rebel and I squeeze my eyelids together tighter to block out the grains of light, mere distractions that keep us awake but a sign that there's life beyond. But there's no life in me. None that I can feel, from where I lie at the bottom of the staircase. My heart beats quicker now, the lone fighter left standing in the ring, a red boxing glove pumping victoriously into the air, refusing to give up. It's the only part of me that cares, the only part that ever cared. It fights to pump the blood around to heal, to replace what I'm losing. But it's all leaving my body as quickly as it's sent; forming a deep black ocean of its own around me where I've fallen. Rushing, rushing, rushing. We are always rushing. Never have enough time here, always trying to make our way there. Need to have left here five minutes ago, need to be there now. The phone rings again and I acknowledge the irony. I could have taken my time and answered it now. Now, not then. I could have taken all the time in the world on each of those steps. But we're always rushing. All, but my heart. That slows now. I don't mind so much. I place my hand on my belly. If my child is gone, and I suspect this is so, I'll join it there. There.....where? Wherever. It; a heartless word. He or she so young; who it was to become, still a question. But there, I will mother it. There, not here. I'll tell it; I'm sorry, sweetheart, I'm sorry I ruined your chances - our chances of a life together.But close your eyes and stare into the darkness now, like Mummy is doing, and we'll find our way together. There's a noise in the room and I feel a presence. 'Oh God, Joyce, oh God. Can you hear me, love? Oh God. Oh God, please no, Hold on love, I'm here. Dad is here.' I don't want to hold on and I feel like telling him so. I hear myself groan, an animal-like whimper and it shocks me, scares me. I have a plan, I want to tell him. I want to go, only then can I be with my baby. Then, not now. He's stopped me from falling but I haven't landed yet. Instead he helps me balance on nothing, hover while I'm forced to make the decision. I want to keep falling but he's calling the ambulance and he's gripping my hand with such ferocity it's as though I'm all he has. He's brushing the hair from my forehead and weeping loudly. I've never heard him weep. Not even when Mum died. He clings to my hand with all of his strength I never knew his old body had and I remember that I am all he has and that he, once again just like before, is my whole world. The blood continues to rush through me. Rushing, rushing, rushing. We are always rushing. Maybe I'm rushing again. Maybe it's not my time to go. I feel the rough skin of old hands squeezing mine, and their intensity and their familiarity force me to open my eyes. Lights fills them and I glimpse his face, a look I never want to see again. He clings to his baby. I know I lost mind; I can't let him lose his. In making my decision I already begin to grieve. I've landed now, the land of my life. And still my heart pumps on. Even when broken it still works.

As hard as I fought to hold on to my anger, to continue to hate my dad, the tugging of the good memories eventually found an inroad to my heart. No one is all good or all bad. The reality that my father would forever be a part of me was inescapable. A big part of making peace with myself was rediscovering the good in him and claiming that as my inheritance. The act of forgiving wasn’t like flipping a switch—forgiven . . . unforgiven . . . forgiven . . . unforgiven . . . forgiven.

[WAIT—IT WON’T LET ME REDACT THESE LITTLE SUBHEADING THINGS? THAT’S SUPER ANNOYING!] [FINE, I’LL JUST GIVE YOU MY SUMMARY.] [SO, WHOEVER WROTE THIS WAS ALL BLAH-BLAH-BLAH-STELLARLUNE-SOMETHING-SOMETHING-LEGACY. BUT SERIOUSLY, NO ONE WANTS TO READ ABOUT THE CREEPY STUFF MY MOM DID BEFORE SHE GOT PREGNANT WITH ME! (AND WE’RE ALL SUPER SICK OF HEARING ABOUT MY “LEGACY,” AMIRITE?) SO, LET’S JUST LEAVE IT AT THIS: MY MOM IS EVIL. SHE THINKS SHE’S WAY SMARTER THAN SHE IS. AND NOTHING SHE DID IS GOING TO AFFECT MY GENERAL AWESOMENESS, OKAY?] A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY: [WOW, HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH SUCH A CLEVER TITLE?!] [AND YEAH, I HAVE A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY. NOT SURE WHY ANYONE CARES. BUT IT DOES COME IN HANDY DURING MIDTERMS AND FINALS.] AHEAD OF THE GAME: [BASICALLY: I’M A GENIUS. I SKIPPED LEVEL ONE AT FOXFIRE. YES, YOU SHOULD BE IMPRESSED.] UNREASONABLY HIGH STANDARDS: [GOTTA ADMIT, I WAS TEMPTED TO LEAVE THIS ONE ALONE, SINCE WHOEVER WROTE IT ACTUALLY GOT THINGS PRETTY MUCH RIGHT. I GUESS EVEN THE COUNCIL KNOWS MY DAD’S A JERK WHO FREAKS OUT ALL THE TIME BECAUSE I’M NOT A LITTLE MINI-HIM. WHO KNEW?] A POWERFUL EMPATH: [UGH, THAT’S THE BEST YOU COULD DO FOR THIS SUBHEADING???] [HOW ABOUT “LORD OF THE FEELS”? OR “TRUST THE EMPATH”! OR “HE KNOWS WHAT YOU’RE FEELING—AND YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF”?] [OOO! I’VE GOT IT! “HE KNOWS FOSTER BETTER THAN YOU DO! BETTER THAN SHE EVEN KNOWS HERSELF!”] [THOUGH… KEEPING IT REAL? THE FOSTER OBLIVION CAN BE KINDA NOT COOL SOMETIMES.] THE HEART OF THE MATTER: [I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU GUYS NAMED A SECTION OF MY FILE AFTER MY FATHER’S SUPER-BORING BOOK—AND THEN RAMBLED ON FOR TWO PAGES ABOUT HIS SUPER-BORING THEORY!!!!!] [YOU DON’T NEED TWO PAGES ON IT. YOU DON’T EVEN NEED TWO SENTENCES. HERE’S ALLLLLL YOU NEED TO KNOW—BESIDES THE FACT THAT HE’S TOTALLY NOT THE FIRST PERSON TO COME UP WITH THIS (JUST THE ONE WHO LOVES TO TAKE CREDIT): OUR HEADS AND OUR HEARTS SOMETIMES FEEL DIFFERENT EMOTIONS, AND WHAT’S IN OUR HEARTS IS PROBABLY STRONGER.] [THAT’S IT!] [WELL… OKAY… I GUESS HE ALSO GOES ON A BIT ABOUT HOW EMPATHS PROBABLY ONLY READ THE EMOTIONS FROM THE HEAD.] [AND THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT HEART EMOTIONS BEING PURER BECAUSE NO ONE CAN CONTROL THEM.] [BUT THAT’S IT.] [AND DON’T TELL LORD BORINGPANTS I READ HIS DUMB BOOK! I MOSTLY SKIMMED.] PRANKSTER AND TROUBLEMAKER: [100 PERCENT ACCURATE. ALSO, I’M LEAVING YOUR LITTLE ATTACHED DETENTION RECORD BECAUSE IT’S THE GREATEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE!!!!]

I liked watching them, all three of them around my truck. I wanted time to stop because everything seemed so simple, Dante and Legs falling in love with each other, Dante's mom and dad remembering something about their youth as they examined my truck, and me, the proud owner. I had something of value– even if it was just a truck that brought out a sweet nostalgia in people. It was as if my eyes were a camera and I was photographing the moment, knowing that I would keep that photograph forever.

This was a helpful step in gaining a new perspective on my past, and my past was a significant proportion of who I believed myself to be. It felt like I had hacked into my own past. Unravelled all the erroneous and poisonous information I had unconsciously lived with and lived by and with necessary witness, the accompaniment of another man, reset the beliefs I had formed as a child and left unamended through unnecessary fear. Suddenly my fraught and freighted childhood became reasonable and soothed. ‘My mum was doing her best, so was my dad.’ Yes, people made mistakes but that’s what humans do, and I am under no obligation to hoard these errors and allow them to clutter my perception of the present. Yes, it is wrong that I was abused as a child but there is no reason for me to relive it, consciously or unconsciously, in the way I conduct my adult relationships. My perceptions of reality, even my own memories, are not objective or absolute, they are a biased account and they can be altered.

Tonight, I decided to take a stroll down to my local liquor store. Maybe I’ll find a refreshment to wash down this full moon. I hate showing up & the clerk fucking knows my name, perhaps because I’m a regular. Anyways got my shit, left…barely covering the tax. Took the long way home; to get away from that haunting typewriter. Sat down at some park bench, as I started to open my poison; A memory rushed into me. A empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s under the Christmas tree. I thought my dad would want another drink, so started to pour my bottle into the dirt & cried.

Windham, but not often. There were no murders in anyone’s memory, no rapes or molestations or sudden disappearances. It’s a quiet town. Windham was perfect, we thought. Safe and sound, and that’s where Veronica and I would grow up. We moved there ten years ago. That was in April 2005. I was nine and my little sister Veronica was almost three. My dad, Dr. Simon Taylor, had made a bunch from the popularity of his book, and it was number four on the best-seller list and still holding fast. I’ll bet fifty thousand a month was tumbling in, and Dad had already signed a two million dollar advance on his next book.

Jack, who apparently always had to be moving in some way, had made up for the missing knife by grabbing a half loaf of French bread and methodically ripping it into tiny pieces. “What,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “Why don’t faeries like bread?” “Hmm?” Jack looked up, then shrugged. “I dunno.” Lend picked up a piece, crumbling it. “My dad said he thought it was because it was the staff of life for people.” “Nasty stuff tastes like mold,” Jack said. “I tried a piece once a while ago when I was still trying to force myself to eat normal food so I could stay here. It was like a shock to my whole system.” He shuddered at the memory.

Oh shit, I wouldn’t use that towel if I were you,” Gavin mumbles. I ignore him scrubbing every inch of my face, hoping that maybe I can rub away the memory of the words my mother spoke to me. “Seriously dude, give me that thing,” Gavin says, Interrupting my thoughts. I pull the towel away and glare at his reflection in the mirror. He’s standing behind me with a look of disgust on his face and his hand out. “What the fuck is wrong with you? I just found out that my mom was a slut and has no idea who my dad is and all you’re worried about is your precious towel?” I ramble, my voice getting that hysterical squeak to it. “What’s wrong? Is this one of Charlotte’s ‘good’ towels, reserved for guests or some shit? Fuck, are you pussy whipped.” Gavin shakes his head at me and tries reaching over my shoulder to take the towel. I snatch it away and turn to face him. “What is your fucking deal? It’s a Goddamn towel!” I yell. “Yeah, it’s a jizz towel, dude.” I look at him in confusion, glancing down at the towel and back up at him when what he said finally sinks in. He’s biting his lip and I can’t tell if he’s trying not to laugh or if he’s trying to think of a way to run out of here as fast as he can. “Hey, what are you guys doing in the bathroom?” Charlotte asks, suddenly appearing in the doorway. “Oh, my God! Did you just use that towel, Tyler?” I quickly throw the towel away from me like it’s on fire and it lands in the toilet. “Dammit, don’t throw it in the toilet, you’ll ruin it!” Charlotte scolds. “I’m pretty sure you ruined it by putting jizz on it!” I scream. “Why the fuck would you leave a jizz towel on the sink where anyone could use it?” “I’d never use it. I knew it was a jizz towel,” Gavin replies with a shrug. “Oh, my God! I scrubbed my fucking face with a towel that had your dry, crusty jizz on it!” I can’t believe this is happening right now. My mom had a foursome, my dad isn’t my dad and now I have jizz face. Moving as fast as I can, I jump into the shower and turn on the water, not even caring that I’m fully clothed. “Do you want us to leave so you can take your clothes off?” Charlotte asks, as the water rains down on me, soaking my t-shirt and jeans. “I am NOT taking my clothes off. There could be trace particles of jizz on them! I’m going to have to burn these clothes!” I complain. I keep my face under the scalding hot water, taking in large mouthfuls, swishing and then spitting on the shower floor. “Eeew, don’t spit in our shower!” Charlotte scolds. “I HAVE GAVIN’S JIZZ ON MY FACE! I WILL SPIT WHEREVER THE FUCK I WANT!

In Luke’s own experience with loss, he didn’t turn to God for comfort. Although a believer as a child, he had become an atheist by his mid-twenties. And it was then, just as his atheism was overshadowing his theism, that his beloved father unexpectedly died the day after Christmas. “So that was really a test of my atheism, when my dad died. I mean, I was like, ‘If this is true that there isn’t a God, then I’ll never see my dad again. He’s not in heaven. There is no afterlife.’ I really had to seriously think about the implications of that. And I did—very deeply and very seriously. And I knew that I just couldn’t believe any of it. My dad was gone, and that was that. But it was actually not as traumatic as you might expect, because I found that I didn’t need to believe all that religious stuff from my childhood in order to feel better. I still had the memory of my father, and that was good enough. The things that I valued about my dad were still there, inside of me. He lives on in me, and in my brothers. Why did I need to think he was in heaven looking down at me? Why did I need to think I would someday meet him again? In all honesty, I think those things seem kind of weird to me now.” But how did he cope, exactly, when his dad died? “Friends and family. Friends and family. That’s it.

AUTHOR’S NOTE Dear reader: This story was inspired by an event that happened when I was eight years old. At the time, I was living in upstate New York. It was winter, and my dad and his best friend, “Uncle Bob,” decided to take my older brother, me, and Uncle Bob’s two boys for a hike in the Adirondacks. When we left that morning, the weather was crisp and clear, but somewhere near the top of the trail, the temperature dropped abruptly, the sky opened, and we found ourselves caught in a torrential, freezing blizzard. My dad and Uncle Bob were worried we wouldn’t make it down. We weren’t dressed for that kind of cold, and we were hours from the base. Using a rock, Uncle Bob broke the window of an abandoned hunting cabin to get us out of the storm. My dad volunteered to run down for help, leaving my brother Jeff and me to wait with Uncle Bob and his boys. My recollection of the hours we spent waiting for help to arrive is somewhat vague except for my visceral memory of the cold: my body shivering uncontrollably and my mind unable to think straight. The four of us kids sat on a wooden bench that stretched the length of the small cabin, and Uncle Bob knelt on the floor in front of us. I remember his boys being scared and crying and Uncle Bob talking a lot, telling them it was going to be okay and that “Uncle Jerry” would be back soon. As he soothed their fear, he moved back and forth between them, removing their gloves and boots and rubbing each of their hands and feet in turn. Jeff and I sat beside them, silent. I took my cue from my brother. He didn’t complain, so neither did I. Perhaps this is why Uncle Bob never thought to rub our fingers and toes. Perhaps he didn’t realize we, too, were suffering. It’s a generous view, one that as an adult with children of my own I have a hard time accepting. Had the situation been reversed, my dad never would have ignored Uncle Bob’s sons. He might even have tended to them more than he did his own kids, knowing how scared they would have been being there without their parents. Near dusk, a rescue jeep arrived, and we were shuttled down the mountain to waiting paramedics. Uncle Bob’s boys were fine—cold and exhausted, hungry and thirsty, but otherwise unharmed. I was diagnosed with frostnip on my fingers, which it turned out was not so bad. It hurt as my hands were warmed back to life, but as soon as the circulation was restored, I was fine. Jeff, on the other hand, had first-degree frostbite. His gloves needed to be cut from his fingers, and the skin beneath was chafed, white, and blistered. It was horrible to see, and I remember thinking how much it must have hurt, the damage so much worse than my own. No one, including my parents, ever asked Jeff or me what happened in the cabin or questioned why we were injured and Uncle Bob’s boys were not, and Uncle Bob and Aunt Karen continued to be my parents’ best friends. This past winter, I went skiing with my two children, and as we rode the chairlift, my memory of that day returned. I was struck by how callous and uncaring Uncle Bob, a man I’d known my whole life and who I believed loved us, had been and also how unashamed he was after. I remember him laughing with the sheriff, like the whole thing was this great big adventure that had fortunately turned out okay. I think he even viewed himself as sort of a hero, boasting about how he’d broken the window and about his smart thinking to lead us to the cabin in the first place. When he got home, he probably told Karen about rubbing their sons’ hands and feet and about how he’d consoled them and never let them get scared. I looked at my own children beside me, and a shudder ran down my spine as I thought about all the times I had entrusted them to other people in the same way my dad had entrusted us to Uncle Bob, counting on the same naive presumption that a tacit agreement existed for my children to be cared for equally to their own.

The images strewn across a European landscape provoked horrors of the greatest sort. Therefore, seldom did my Dad or his friends ever talk about the war. Yet, to this day I can still see them lined up on the parade route, rising to ramrod attention and stalwartly saluting the flag until it had passed by. And without any hesitation whatsoever, I can tell you that I observed infinitely more patriotism in the silence of those simple actions than all of those who stand shouting their self-indulgent pontifications in the name of patriotism. And maybe, just maybe we should remember that liberty is not license, principle is non-negotiable, and humility is the bedfellow of great things.

A second later, Ron had snatched his arm back from around her shoulders; she had dropped The Monster Book of Monsters on his foot. The book had broken free from its restraining belt and snapped viciously at Ron’s ankle. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Hermione cried as Harry wrenched the book from Ron’s leg and retied it shut. “What are you doing with all those books anyway?” Ron asked, limping back to his bed. “Just trying to decide which ones to take with us,” said Hermione. “When we’re looking for the Horcruxes.” “Oh, of course,” said Ron, clapping a hand to his forehead. “I forgot we’ll be hunting down Voldemort in a mobile library.” “Ha ha,” said Hermione, looking down at Spellman’s Syllabary. “I wonder…will we need to translate runes? It’s possible…I think we’d better take it, to be safe.” She dropped the syllabary onto the larger of the two piles and picked up Hogwarts, A History. “Listen,” said Harry. He had sat up straight. Ron and Hermione looked at him with similar mixtures of resignation and defiance. “I know you said after Dumbledore’s funeral that you wanted to come with me,” Harry began. “Here he goes,” Ron said to Hermione, rolling his eyes. “As we knew he would,” she sighed, turning back to the books. “You know, I think I will take Hogwarts, A History. Even if we’re not going back there, I don’t think I’d feel right if I didn’t have it with--” “Listen!” said Harry again. “No, Harry, you listen,” said Hermione. “We’re coming with you. That was decided months ago--years, really.” “But--” “Shut up,” Ron advised him. “--are you sure you’ve thought this through?” Harry persisted. “Let’s see,” said Hermione, slamming Travels with Trolls onto the discarded pile with a rather fierce look. “I’ve been packing for days, so we’re ready to leave at a moment’s notice, which for your information has included doing some pretty difficult magic, not to mention smuggling Mad-Eye’s whole stock of Polyjuice Potion right under Ron’s mum’s nose.” “I’ve also modified my parents’ memories so that they’re convinced they’re really called Wendell and Monica Wilkins, and that their life’s ambition is to move to Australia, which they have now done. That’s to make it more difficult for Voldemort to track them down and interrogate them about me--or you, because unfortunately, I’ve told them quite a bit about you. “Assuming I survive our hunt for the Horcruxes, I’ll find Mum and Dad and lifted the enchantment. If I don’t--well, I think I’ve cast a good enough charm to keep them safe and happy. Wendell and Monica Wilkins don’t know that they’ve got a daughter, you see.” Hermione’s eyes were swimming with tears again. Ron got back off the bed, put his arm around her once more, and frowned at Harry as though reproaching him for lack of tact. Harry could not think of anything to say, not least because it was highly unusual for Ron to be teaching anyone else tact.

The thing is, Max,” he said, tons of heart-wringing emotion in his eyes, “you’re even more special than I always told you. You see, you were created for a reason. Kept alive for a purpose, a special purpose.” You mean besides seeing how well insane scientists could graft avian DNA into a human egg? He took a breath, looking deep into my eyes. I coldly shut down every good memory I had of him, every laugh we’d shared, every happy moment, every thought that he was like a dad to me. “Max, that reason, that purpose is: You are supposed to save the world.” 62 Okay, I couldn’t help it. My jaw dropped open. I shut it again quickly. Well. This would certainly give weight to my ongoing struggle to have the bathroom first in the morning.

At the door he stops, collects himself, and quietly unbolts the door. At first, when he pulls it open, he sees nothing. Then there’s a soft hiss, followed by a ripping noise. The noise sounds as though it has nothing to do with him until suddenly a shirt button pops off and clatters against the door. Karekin looks down as all at once his mouth fills with a warm fluid. He feels himself being lifted off his feet, the sensation bringing back to him childhood memories of being whisked into the air by his father, and he says, “Dad, my button,” before he is lifted high enough to make out the steel bayonet puncturing his sternum. The fire’s reflection leads along the gun barrel, over the sight and hammer, to the soldier’s ecstatic face.

We liked our grandparents. We liked our uncle and our aunt. They had known our dad and our brother Ben. They had some of the same memories we did. Sometimes they even brought things up, like, “Remember when your dad went out in the kayak at Aspen Lake and he flipped over and we had to save him in our paddleboat?” and we would all start laughing because we had the same picture in our minds, my dad with his sunglasses dangling from one ear and his hair all wet. And they knew that Ben’s favorite kind of ice cream wasn’t ice cream at all, it was rainbow sherbet, and he always ate green first, and so when I saw it in my grandma’s freezer once and I started crying they didn’t even ask why and I think I saw my uncle Nick, my mom’s brother, crying too.

I don't think about Pomegranate often anymore. I've said all I need to about it. Now I just live my life. With my best friend. We go to the cinema. We look up at the clouds. We go to watch his Uncle Max and his airplane. Adrien flies in it now that he's well enough. And Pomegranate is a distant memory. I choose to think of better things. Of Mum. Of Alan Turing and his incredible invention. Of Dad and Gregor. Of Ria and her new career. Of Adrien and his terrible jokes. Adrien and I walk the lonely road together now. It's not lonely anymore. I'm not alone. We laugh most of the time now, I've noticed. We spend hours after school working on the paper in the garden. Next to the vegetable plot. I love to eat what we grow there. I've had enough of bad fruit.

I know that I brought this all on myself. I know that I deserve this. I’d do anything not to be this way. I’d do anything to make it up to everyone. And to not have to see a psychiatrist, who explains to me about being “passive aggressive.” And to not have to take the medicine he gives me, which is too expensive for my dad. And to not have to talk about bad memories with him. Or be nostalgic about bad things. I just wish that God or my parents or Sam or my sister or someone would just tell me what’s wrong with me. Just tell me how to be different in a way that makes sense. To make this all go away. And disappear. I know that’s wrong because it’s my responsibility, and I know that things get worse before they get better because that’s what my psychiatrist says, but this is a worse that feels too big.

What is it about autism that makes two rational, educated adults torture themselves in this way? Playing the blame game is not healthy and helps no one. Autism does that. It grabs you and, if you’re not careful, it drags you down with it. Despite all the progress made, I’ve felt its pull lately. But we must not let it get the better of us. I propose a new version of the blame game. In this version we ask, ‘Where did he get those beautiful eyes from? That smile? That gorgeous hair and stunning face? Who’s responsible for his amazing reading ability and astonishing memory? Where did those dancing skills come from? And the musical ability?’ Trouble is, my wife would win that version too! Nonetheless, these are the questions we should be asking because, ultimately, they are his defining features, not autism.

I should have felt something—a pang of sadness, a twinge of nostalgia. I did feel a peculiar sensation, like oceanic despair that—if I were in a movie—would be depicted superficially as me shaking my head slowly and shedding a tear. Zoom in on my sad, pretty, orphan face. Smash cut to a montage of my life's most meaningful moments: my first steps; Dad pushing me on a swing at sunset; Mom bathing me in the tub; grainy, swirling home video of my sixth birthday in the backyard garden, me blindfolded and twirling to pin the tail on the donkey. But the nostalgia didn't hit. These weren't my memories. I just felt a tingling in my hands, an eerie tingle, like when you nearly drop something precious off a balcony, but don't. My heart bumped up a little. I could drop it, I told myself—the house, this feeling. I had nothing left to lose.

I now pronounce you husband and wife. I hadn’t considered the kiss. Not once. I suppose I’d assumed it would be the way a wedding kiss should be. Restrained. Appropriate. Mild. A nice peck. Save the real kisses for later, when you’re deliciously alone. Country club girls don’t make out in front of others. Like gum chewing, it should always be done in private, where no one else can see. But Marlboro Man wasn’t a country club boy. He’d missed the memo outlining the rules and regulations of proper ways to kiss in public. I found this out when the kiss began--when he wrapped his loving, protective arms around me and kissed me like he meant it right there in my Episcopal church. Right there in front of my family, and his, in front of Father Johnson and Ms. Altar Guild and our wedding party and the entire congregation, half of whom were meeting me for the first time that night. But Marlboro Man didn’t seem to care. He kissed me exactly the way he’d kissed me the night of our first date--the night my high-heeled boot had gotten wedged in a crack in my parents’ sidewalk and had caused me to stumble. The night he’d caught me with his lips. We were making out in church--there was no way around it. And I felt every bit as swept away as I had that first night. The kiss lasted hours, days, weeks…probably ten to twelve seconds in real time, which, in a wedding ceremony setting, is a pretty long kiss. And it might have been longer had the passionate moment not been interrupted by the sudden sound of a person clapping his hands. “Woohoo! All right!” the person shouted. “Yes!” It was Mike. The congregation broke out in laughter as Marlboro Man and I touched our foreheads together, cementing the moment forever in our memory. We were one; this was tangible to me now. It wasn’t just an empty word, a theological concept, wishful thinking. It was an official, you-and-me-against-the-world designation. We’d both left our separateness behind. From that moment forward, nothing either of us did or said or planned would be in a vacuum apart from the other. No holiday would involve our celebrating separately at our respective family homes. No last-minute trips to Mexico with friends, not that either of us was prone to last-minute trips to Mexico with friends. But still. The kiss had sealed the deal in so many ways. I walked proudly out of the church, the new wife of Marlboro Man. When we exited the same doors through which my dad and I had walked thirty minutes earlier, Marlboro Man’s arm wriggled loose from my grasp and instinctively wrapped around my waist, where it belonged. The other arm followed, and before I knew it we were locked in a sweet, solidifying embrace, relishing the instant of solitude before our wedding party--sisters, cousins, brothers, friends--followed closely behind. We were married. I drew a deep, life-giving breath and exhaled. The sweating had finally stopped. And the robust air-conditioning of the church had almost completely dried my lily-white Vera.

From Dad to Dr. Janelle Kurtz, a shrink at Madrona Hill Dear Dr. Kurtz, My friend Hannah Dillard sang your praises regarding her husband, Frank’s, stay at Madrona Hill. From what I understand, Frank was struggling with depression. His inpatient treatment at Madrona Hill, under your supervision, did him wonders. I write you because I too am deeply concerned about my spouse. Her name is Bernadette Fox, and I fear she is very sick. (Forgive my shambolic penmanship. I’m on an airplane, and my laptop battery is dead so I’ve taken up a pen for the first time in years. I’ll press on, as I think it’s important to get everything down while it’s fresh in the memory.) I’ll begin with some background. Bernadette and I met about twenty-five years ago in Los Angeles, when the architecture firm for which she worked redesigned the animation house for which I worked. We were both from the East Coast and had gone to prep school. Bernadette was a rising star. I was taken by her beauty, gregariousness, and insouciant charm.

Would you like to share a memory of Augustus with the group?" "I wish I would just die, Patrick. Do you ever wish you would just die?" "Yes," Patrick said, without his usual pause. "Yes, of course. So why don't you?" I thought about it. My old stock answer was that I wanted to stay alive for my parents, because they would be all gutted and childless in the wake of me, and that was still kind of true, but that wasn't it exactly. "I don't know." "In the hopes that you'll get better?" "No," I said. "No, it's not that. I don't really know. Isaac?" I asked. I was tired of talking. Isaac started talking about true love. I couldn't tell them what I was thinking because it seemed cheesy to me, but I was thinking about the universe wanting to be noticed, and how I had to notice it as best I could. I felt that I owed a debt to the universe that only my attention could repay, and also that I owed a debt to everybody who didn't get to be a person anymore and everyone who hadn't gotten to be a person yet. What my dad had told me, basically.

My mom worked as a hairdresser at the Village Mall in Horsham Township when I was a little kid. There was a movie theater in the mall that showed second-run features, and I have clear memories of being around five years old and walking through the mall by myself to go watch Star Wars. I believe I saw it in that theater twenty-one times. The research definitely began then. Actually, it began even earlier. Before I was born, my father conspired with my uncle to name me Wyatt, after Wyatt Earp. There was an election held by putting names into a hat, and whatever name was drawn would be the winner. Uncle Billy distracted the people in attendance while my dad rigged the hat so that every name inside read Wyatt. My mom was horrified at the result, but eventually uncovered their ruse. The research was really just me referring to things I already knew from the life I’ve lived. You either hear the music of the open range and a man with two six-shooters or you don’t. You either look out at the stars and wonder what lies beyond them or…I don’t know what you are…someone who loves Nicholas Sparks books.

Do you have any ritual things you do before a race?” My dad did. He always had to wear black boxer shorts and socks. Before every race, he would also have a plain egg omelet for breakfast. I never did learn why. “Yep.” I wait, but he doesn’t expand. “Well…are you gonna tell me what it is?” Arms on the table, he leans forward. “Okay.” He lets out a breath. “I have to eat a bar of Galaxy chocolate before each race.” “Really?” I smile. “Why?” Eyes on me, he rests back in his seat, keeping his hands on the table. “After we first moved to England, I don’t know if it was the pressure or being in a different country or what, but I wasn’t winning races. I was coming in fourth at best. I was panicking because Dad had given up so much by moving us to England, and I was getting frustrated because I knew I was capable of more. “Anyway, on this particular day, I was hungry because I’d forgotten to eat, and my dad was all, ‘You will lose this race on an empty stomach.’ So, he went off to get me something to eat. Anyway, he came back, telling me there was only this shitty vending machine. Then, he held out a bar of Galaxy chocolate, and I was like, ‘What the hell is that? I’m not eating that. It’s women’s chocolate. Men don’t eat Galaxy. They eat Yorkie.’ You remember the adverts?” “I do.” I laugh, loving the way he’s telling the story. He’s so animated with his eyes all lit up. “So, my dad got pissed off and said, ‘Well, they haven’t got any men’s chocolate, so eat the bloody women’s chocolate, and shut the hell up!’” I snort out a laugh. “So, what did you do?” “Sulked for about a minute, and then I ate the fucking bar of Galaxy, and it was the best chocolate I’d ever tasted—not that I admitted that to my dad at the time. Then, I got in my kart and won my first ever race in England.” He smiles fondly, and I can see the memory in his eyes. “And since then, before every race, my dad buys me a bar of Galaxy from a vending machine, and I eat it. It’s my one weird thing.” “But what if there isn’t any Galaxy chocolate in a vending machine? Or worse, there isn’t a vending machine?” He leans forward, a sexy-arse smile on his face. “There’s always a vending machine, Andressa, and there’s always a bar of Galaxy in it.” “Ah.” The power of being Carrick Ryan.

So Dad was a tedious, well-connected workaholic. But the other thing you need to understand is that Mom was a living wet dream. A former Guess model and Miller Lite girl, she was tall, curvy and gorgeous. At thirty-eight, she had somehow managed to remain ageless and maintained her killer body. She’s five-foot-nine with never-ending legs, generous breasts and full hips that scoop dramatically into her slim waist. People who say Barbie’s proportions are unrealistic obviously never met my stepmother. Her face is pretty too, with long eyelashes, sculpted cheekbones and big, blue eyes that tease and smile at the same time. Her long brown hair rests on her shoulders in thick, tousled layers like in one of those Pantene Pro-V commercials. One memory seared in to my brain from my early teenage years is of Mom parading around the house one evening in nothing but her heels and underwear. I was sitting on the couch in the living room watching TV when a flurry of long limbs and blow-dried hair burst in front of the screen. “Teddy-bear. Do you know where Silvia left the dry cleaning? I’m running late for dinner with the Blackwells and I can’t find my red cocktail dress.” Mom stood before me in matching off-white, La Perla bra and panties and Manolo Blahnik stilettos. Some subtle gold hoop earrings hung from her ears and a tiny bit of mascara on her eye lashes highlighted her sparkling, blue eyes. Aside from the missing dress, she was otherwise ready to go. “I think she left them hanging on the chair next to the other sofa,” I said, trying my best not to gape at Mom’s perfect body. Mom trotted across the room, her heels tocking on the hard wood floor. I watched her slim, sexy back as she lifted the dry cleaning onto the sofa and then bent over to sort through the garments. My eyes followed her long mane of brown hair down to her heart-shaped ass. Her panties stretched tightly across each cheek as she bent further down. “Found it!” She cried, springing back upright, causing her 35Cs to bounce up and down from the sudden motion. They were thrusting proudly off her ribcage and bulging out over the fabric of the balconette bra like two titanic eggs. Her supple skin pushed out over the silk edges. And then she was gone as quickly as she had arrived, her long legs striding back down the hallway.

I thought of calling this piece “In Memoriam,” because “in memoriam” has always suggested a place to me—Memoriam, Oklahoma, say, or Memoriam, Tennessee—and because, to my tinker’s brain, “in memoriam,” sounds like “in memory am.” Which I am, now more than ever. Lost, basically, wandering that ancestral home, all polished wood and anecdote, wishing that I could unload it somehow, knowing I never will. Like it or not, I have an investment in Memoriam now. My father’s casket between the potted palms is the cornerstone. Welcome home, kid. It’s an odd, slightly ghostly predicament. Lacking brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, with my mother’s memory having long ago lost any trace of me, I find myself the sole surviving owner of ten thousand names, stories, jokes, associations—that time the raccoon reached up through the knothole in the cabin floor when I was four; those Friday nights when the three of us would watch “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”; that evening, a memorable night in 1966, when my dad, with his professorial air and his Czech accent and his horn-rims, put on my mother’s shoulder-length blond wig on a dare and went out to pick up the pizza—that mean nothing, except that they were the soil of our lives.

What are people saying about me and Rosie?” Ryder asks, his brows drawn. I throw one hand up in the air. “Never mind. It’s not like I care, anyway.” “No, ’course you don’t,” he snaps back. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He shakes his head. “Nothing, Jemma. Just…go to bed, why don’t you?” “What, are you my dad now? How about this? I’ll go to bed when I’m ready to go to bed.” “Wow, that’s real mature.” “You’re such a jerk, Ryder.” “A jerk? That’s the best you’ve got? You’re really off your game tonight.” “You are really getting on my nerves,” I say, my skin flushing hotly. He just shrugs, looking entirely unmoved. “What else is new? I’ve always gotten on your nerves.” “Not always,” I say, and my heart catches a little. I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing back the memories. When I open them again, he’s still standing there, glowering at me. “Great, here we go again.” He starts to walk away and then turns back to face me. “You know what? I have no idea what I did to piss you off, but--” “Seriously?” I sputter. “I’ll give you a hint--eighth grade.” “You’re mad at me about something I did in eighth grade, Jem? That was four fucking years ago. Whatever it was, why don’t you grow up and get over it?” “Why don’t you go to hell,” I shoot back. “I’m leaving now,” he says, turning to stalk away. “Good!” I shout, tears burning behind my eyelids. “Go. I hate you, Ryder Marsden!” “Yeah, well…the feeling’s mutual,” he throws back over one shoulder. Even though I know it’s childish of me, I storm back inside and slam the French doors with as much force as I can muster, nearly rattling them off their hinges. Charming, right?

The same song was playing the second I met my ex–best friend and the moment I realized I’d lost her. I met my best friend at a neighborhood cookout the year we would both turn twelve. It was one of those hot Brooklyn afternoons that always made me feel like I'd stepped out of my life and onto a movie set because the hydrants were open, splashing water all over the hot asphalt. There wasn't a cloud in the flawless blue sky. And pretty black and brown people were everywhere. I was crying. ‘What a Wonderful World’ was playing through a speaker someone had brought with them to the park, and it reminded me too much of my Granny Georgina. I was cupping the last snow globe she’d ever given me in my small, sweaty hands and despite the heat, I couldn’t help imagining myself inside the tiny, perfect, snow-filled world. I was telling myself a story about what it might be like to live in London, a place that was unimaginably far and sitting in the palm of my hands all at once. But it wasn't working. When Gigi had told me stories, they'd felt like miracles. But she was gone and I didn't know if I'd ever be okay again. I heard a small voice behind me, asking if I was okay. I had noticed a girl watching me, but it took her a long time to come over, and even longer to say anything. She asked the question quietly. I had never met anyone who…spoke the way that she did, and I thought that her speech might have been why she waited so long to speak to me. While I expected her to say ‘What’s wrong?’—a question I didn’t want to have to answer—she asked ‘What are you doing?’ instead, and I was glad. “I was kind of a weird kid, so when I answered, I said ‘Spinning stories,’ calling it what Gigi had always called it when I got lost in my own head, but my voice cracked on the phrase and another tear slipped down my cheek. To this day I don’t know why I picked that moment to be so honest. Usually when kids I didn't know came up to me, I clamped my mouth shut like the heavy cover of an old book falling closed. Because time and taught me that kids weren't kind to girls like me: Girls who were dreamy and moony-eyed and a little too nice. Girls who wore rose-tonted glasses. And actual, really thick glasses. Girls who thought the world was beautiful, and who read too many books, and who never saw cruelty coming. But something about this girl felt safe. Something about the way she was smiling as she stuttered out the question helped me know I needn't bother with being shy, because she was being so brave. I thought that maybe kids weren't nice to girls like her either. The cookout was crowded, and none of the other kids were talking to me because, like I said, I was the neighborhood weirdo. I carried around snow globesbecause I was in love with every place I’d never been. I often recited Shakespeare from memory because of my dad, who is a librarian. I lost myself in books because they were friends who never letme down, and I didn’t hide enough of myself the way everyone else did, so people didn’t ‘get’ me. I was lonely a lot. Unless I was with my Gigi. The girl, she asked me if it was making me feel better, spinning the stories. And I shook my head. Before I could say what I was thinking—a line from Hamlet about sorrow coming in battalions that would have surely killed any potential I had of making friends with her. The girl tossed her wavy black hair over her shoulder and grinned. She closed her eyes and said 'Music helps me. And I love this song.' When she started singing, her voice was so unexpected—so bright and clear—that I stopped crying and stared at her. She told me her name and hooked her arm through mine like we’d known each other forever, and when the next song started, she pulled me up and we spun in a slow circle together until we were both dizzy and giggling.

Why did you come back to Salt Lake?" I knew the answer before I asked the question and he knew I knew, and it was like you could see the shadow of it hanging there between us. "I needed to see you," he finally said. "It's hard to explain." "You don't have to." "I tried telling my mom once what happed that day. Showed her the hole in the window screen and Moe and even after that she said it was complicated, that my dad's a complicated man and we all needed to try harder to understand him." His voice was shaking now. "And I thought, hey, maybe she's right. Maybe he was just playing around, you know. Maybe we didn't need to run." "We did," I whispered. "That's why I had to come, see?" He didn't move and I didn't move, but in a few seconds I heard him sniffling and he couldn't stop and I knew he was crying. "Cameron." I propped myself up, reached out my arm. "Come here." He got up and came to me, dragging his blanket behind him like a child. I scooted over in my bed to make room. "Come on." He positioned himself beside me-I stayed under the covers, he was on top of them, his head next to mine on the pillow. I stroked his hair and thought of the week he'd lived at our house, the way we slept shoulder to shoulder in our sleeping bags in the living room and I got another good memory. Jennifer, Cameron had said. You awake? His voice was coming from across the room. I sat up. Yeah. Look. He was standing by the living room window. The blinds were closed, but he had his hands on the cord, a big smile on his face. Ready? I nodded, starting to smile myself. One, two, three, Cameron said, then pulled the blind up, hand over hand on the cord like someone on TV. His smile got even bigger as he watched my face. Snow. Giant flakes of it falling in front of the window even though it was only September. Now, I fell asleep with my arm over Cameron's chest, thinking of how the flakes had been slow and white in the glow of the streetlights that lined the apartment walkways, and the smile on his face and on mine, like the snow was personal, a gift he'd given me himself.

It’s getting-up time,” Alessandro declares. “Today is the day.” “What day?” “The release date.” “What are we talking about?” “Daa-add. The new XBOX game. Hunting Old Sammie.” Armand opens his eyes. He looks at his son looking at him. The boy’s eyes are only inches away. “You’re kidding.” “It’s the newest best game. You hunt down terrorists and kill them.” Lifting his voice, “‘Deploy teams of Black Berets into the ancient mountains of Tora Bora. Track implacable terrorists to their cavernous lairs. Rain withering fire down on the homicidal masterminds who planned the horror of September eleven, two-thousand-and-one.’” The kid’s memory is canny. Armand lifts Alex off his chest and sits up. “Who invented it?” “I’m telling you, dad. It’s an XBOX game.” “We can get it today?” “No,” Leah says. “Absolutely not. The last thing he needs is another violent video game.” “Mahhuum!” “How bad can it be?” says Armand. “How would you know? A minute ago you hadn’t heard of it.” “And you had?” “I saw a promo. Helicopter gunships with giant machine guns. Soldiers with flamethrowers, turning bearded men into candles.” “Sounds great.” “Armand, really. How old are you?” “I don’t see what my age has to do with it.” “Dad, it’s totally cool. ‘Uncover mountain strongholds with thermal imaging technology. Call in air-strikes by F-16s. Destroy terrorist cells with laser weaponry. Wage pitched battles against mujahideen. Capture bin Laden alive or kill him on the spot. March down Fifth Avenue with jihadists’ heads on pikes. Make the world safe for democracy.’” Safe for Dick Cheney’s profits, Armand thinks, knowing all about it from his former life, but says nothing. It’s pretty much impossible to explain the complexity of how things work within the greater systemic dysfunction. Instead, he asks the one question that matters. “How much does it cost?” Alessandro’s mouth minces sideways. He holds up fingers, then realizes he needs more than two hands. Armand can see the kid doesn’t want to say. “C’mon. ’Fess up.” Alex sighs. “A one with two zeros.” “One hundred dollars.” Alex’s eyes slide away. Rapid nods, face averted. “Yeah.” “For a video game, Alex.” “Yhep.” “No way.” “Daa-add! It’s the greatest game ever!” The boy is beginning to whine. “Don’t whine,” Armand tells him. “On TV it’s awesome. The army guys are flaming a cave and when the terror guys try to escape, they shoot them.” “Neat.” “Their turbans are on fire.” “Even better.” “Armand,” Leah says. “Dad,” says Alessandro. He will not admit it but Armand is hooked. It would be deeply satisfying in the second-most intimate way imaginable to kill al Qaida terrorists holed up along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border—something the actual U.S. military cannot or will not completely do. But a hundred bucks. It isn’t really the money, although living on interest income Armand has become more frugal. He can boost the C-note but what message would it send? Hunting virtual terrorists in cyberspace is all well and good. But plunking down $100 for a toy seems irresponsible and possibly wrong in a country where tens of thousands are homeless and millions have no health insurance and children continue, incredibly, to go hungry. Fifty million Americans live in poverty and he’s looking to play games.

The memory slowly faded away. I could feel tears strolling down my snout from my eyes. I missed my father... He did what he could to save me that day.

In the shop, breathing the scent of dusty grease and oil; in the old house, staring into the living room where Dad and Jake used to take naps together on the couch; in the sheep barn, remembering the joy implicit in so much baaing life; in every inch of the farm, I recalled my father’s presence.

That was the end of my search to find someone that would make my mother happy again. I finally understood that no matter what I did, or who I found, I–he–none of us–would ever be able to win over the memories she had of Dad, memories that soothed her even while they made her sad, because she'd built a world out of them she knew how to survive in, even if no one else could.

All My Friends That's how it starts We go back to your house We check the charts And start to figure it out And if it's crowded, all the better Because we know we're gonna be up late But if you're worried about the weather Then you picked the wrong place to stay That's how it starts And so it starts You switch the engine on We set controls for the heart of the sun One of the ways we show our age And if the sun comes up, if the sun comes up, if the sun comes up And I still don't wanna stagger home Then it's the memory of our betters That are keeping us on our feet You spent the first five years trying to get with the plan And the next five years trying to be with your friends again You're talking 45 turns just as fast as you can Teah, I know it gets tired, but it's better when we pretend It comes apart The way it does in bad films Except in parts When the moral kicks in Though when we're running out of the drugs And the conversation's winding away I wouldn't trade one stupid decision For another five years of life You drop the first ten years just as fast as you can And the next ten people who are trying to be polite When you're blowing eighty-five days in the middle of France Yeah, I know it gets tired only where are your friends tonight? And to tell the truth Oh, this could be the last time So here we go Like a sales force into the night And if I made a fool, if I made a fool, if I made a fool On the road, there's always this And if I'm sewn into submission I can still come home to this And with a face like a dad and a laughable stand You can sleep on the plane or review what you said When you're drunk and the kids leave impossible tasks You think over and over, "hey, I'm finally dead." Oh, if the trip and the plan come apart in your hand Tou look contorted on yourself your ridiculous prop You forgot what you meant when you read what you said And you always knew you were tired, but then Where are your friends tonight? Where are your friends tonight? Where are your friends tonight? If I could see all my friends tonight If I could see all my friends tonight If I could see all my friends tonight If I could see all my friends tonight