And a man who never feels the ground never learns that it is there, and never learns to stand on his own two feet upon it, and can therefore be talked into believing that the mother beneath him, holding him up, is nothing but a servant to be seated below the cousins.

I loved my son far too much, this time, to save him from the one lesson that might actually make him into a man.

Chapter 18 — The Park Bench

Six months later, the spring sun lay warm and bright over a quiet park on the outskirts of the city, and I sat on a bench with a cup of good coffee going pleasantly cool in my hands, and I watched my grandson run laughing across the green grass.

He is seven now.