Jessie’s breathing evens against me, like it used to when he was so small, when I used to carry him upstairs after he’d fallen asleep in my lap. He used to hit me over and over with questions:

What’s a two-inch hose for; a one-inch? How come you wash the engines? Does the can man ever et to drive?

I realize that I cannot remember exactly when he stopped asking. But I do remember feeling as if something had gone missing, as if the loss of a kid’s hero worship canache like a phantom limb.