I heard those words from my son every week for months, and I believed them, because why would I not, and because they were, in a sense I could not yet imagine, entirely true.

He was almost there.

He was almost there on something.

I simply had the something wrong.

I have thought a great deal about those two words, almost there, and about how a lie can be built entirely out of truths.

Every single thing my son told me that year was, in its way, true.

He had a job; he did.

He was working hard for money; he was.