On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

I had come to see language as an almost supernatural force, existing between people, bringing our brains, shielded in centimeter-thick skulls, into communion. A word meant something only between people, and life’s meaning, its virtue, had something to do with the depth of the relationships we form.

And why does he never name the mother of his child, who presumably nursed him when things were bad, pressed pills out of their packets when he needed them most, washed him, held his body when it was pliant with sleep, saw the stitches dissolving in his spine?