I have felt shame before, but nothing like the shame of being laughed at by a crowd while your ten-year-old son sits beside you and hears every note of it.

And that, I think, was the exact thing my son could not bear — not the insult to me, but the laughter, the sound of a room agreeing that his mother was garbage.

He had come to see whether his father would act like a real dad.

He had just gotten his answer, in stereo, and the answer had made two hundred people laugh.

That was the moment he set down his fork.

Chapter 5 — Can I Use the Microphone