Wilde Lake

Thirty-five years ago, I would have had no chance to have children with a biological link to their father; Penelope and Justin would not exist. How can I long for that world? Thirty-five years ago, people I loved made disastrous decisions that made perfect sense within the context of the world they knew, the moment in which they had to act. They we

That was one of the things I was famous for as a baby, according to my father. I never cried. Thinking back on this from the vantage point of having had two children, I now have to wonder: Did I really never cry or did my father just not hear me?

the one about the girl with moonlight in her eyes.

‘Strange Fruit.’ I guess I’m just an old grouch.” My father

“Had they had the surgery?” my father asked and I tried to explain that the question is no longer allowed, that we accept people as they see themselves.

The present is swollen with self-regard for itself, but soon enough the present becomes the past. This present, this day, this very moment we inhabit—it all will be held accountable for the things it didn’t know, didn’t understand.

I think we hold the truth in too high an esteem. The truth is a tool, like a kitchen knife. You can use it for its purpose or you can use it—No, that’s not quite right. The truth is inert. It has no intrinsic power. Lies have all the power.

with the ease of someone who knows he has transcended the foibles of his past, a trick I’ll never master.

Would they get married? Would I get to go to the wedding? Would I be their flower girl? I didn’t want to be a flower girl. Or maybe I did.