I take Molly’s hand and we literally scamper through the place. Down the gloomy aisle of stuffed animals waiting to be loved and past the freakishly pink Barbie aisle, then past the brightly colored plastic swing sets and sandboxes shaped like turtles and bumble bees. Past the gleaming rows of bicycles and tricycles and red wagons and midget electric cars. Turn a corner and come upon the action figure aisle. I stop and suck in my breath with reverence. This is a kid’s promised land.

Molly laughs at the expression on my face.

I reach for a shopping cart and start loading up on little role models. Explaining to Molly as I go that Batman is indispensable. The Dark Knight, baby. Spider-Man is a nerd and talks a lot of trash but he has the coolest powers. Wolverine is your ultimate psycho and what kid doesn’t want adamantine claws. The Silver Surfer is the mad philosopher, the cursed poet, Hamlet on a magic surfboard. And then there’s Ghost Rider. Obscure as hell but I was always partial to him because he has a flaming skull and he’s not always a nice guy. Ghost Rider is sometimes a bad guy, and this is an important lesson for a kid to learn. I pass over Superman because he was such a bore. He was like the president of the student council. And he hung out with Aquaman, over there in the Justice League. Now there was a worthless ninny if ever there was one. Aquaman talked to the fishes. He was handy during an oil spill or a tropical storm, maybe. But if somebody was robbing a bank, where the fuck was Aquaman?

Women, says Molly. What about some women?

Of course. I immediately reach for Catwoman.

Catwoman? says Molly. The femme fatale from hell?

Or heaven, I say. It’s just a matter of perspective.

How so?

If she’s handing your lunch to you, then maybe you don’t like Catwoman. And rightly so. But if she’s giving you a superfreaky blowjob in the back of the Batmobile, then she’s your best friend.

Uh huh. Does the Batmobile even have a backseat? says Molly.

I scratch my head.

And does a five-year-old need to contemplate such things?

No. I guess not.

Now we argue about female superheroes, briefly and with a fair amount of giggling. I am not wavering on Catwoman so Molly insists on Jean Grey, on the grounds that she’s essentially the opposite of Catwoman.

Jean Grey is an intellectual, says Molly. And she doesn’t generally flash her tits.

Okay, I say. Wolverine likes her, anyway.

I throw in a sweet Batmobile with a lot of high-tech gear and a few villains, explaining to Molly that superheroes tend to lose their will to live without bad guys to tangle with. And then we are on our way to the cash registers when I am temporarily mesmerized by the Hot Wheels aisle and I flash back to the elaborate, multileveled, and structurally unsound metropolis that I constructed from those plastic orange tracks as a boy.

The silence of snow falling outside.

The oppressive smell of garlic and mushrooms and red pepper. There was spaghetti for dinner and now my mother and father linger in the kitchen to finish a bottle of wine. Their voices rise and fall and slip easily from flirtatious to hostile and back to tender and estranged and all the while it is impossible to say whether or not they are happy.

And here comes Carly Simon on the record player, her voice hoarse and splintered by static and fine scratches in the vinyl. You’re so vain, I bet you think this song is about you.

This song was the soundtrack of my childhood, and I often wonder about its long-term effects.

You’re so vain.

I am maybe seven years old, sitting on the floor of my room in cowboy pajamas. I am surrounded by the small orange universe of my own design and even though I lack the necessary vocabulary, I am no doubt contemplating the laws of physics, the inevitability of inertia and gravity. I place a very small turtle on one of the orange tracks, the kind of turtle that cost ten cents at the pet store and usually died within a week. I select one of my fastest cars, a blue Corvette. I position the car at the top of the track and hold it there a moment, watching the turtle wiggle along the track. I release the blue Corvette and it drops straight down, as if falling down the sheer edge of a cliff, and crashes into the turtle with a nice meaty thud.

The turtle is knocked from the track and is dazed but not killed.

My parents are arguing now, or maybe not. Maybe one of them is seducing the other.

I return the turtle to the track and reach for another car. I reach for a glossy black Aston Martin and I am stupidly pleased to see that the cars are still exactly the same, composed not of plastic but actual metal and perfect to the tiny detail. The packaging has not changed and the Hot Wheels logo has not changed and a single car costs just a dollar, which seems to me a reasonable level of inflation over so many years.

Vertigo, dislocation. You’re so fucking vain.

Hey, says Molly. You okay?

What?

She takes the little car from me.

Don’t I look okay?

No, she says. You look like you’re going to cry, or throw up.

I’m not sure how to explain what happens next, but I reckon my head is still halfway morphed into the inarticulate seven-year-old cowboy-pajama-wearing version of Phineas and the only reasonable way that a boy can show a girl how much he likes her is to hurt her somehow.

Boy pokes girl, pinches girl, pulls girl’s hair.

Boy makes girl cry and everyone says oh, well. He just likes you. And how many battered wives and girlfriends soon to be murdered will stare at you with puffy, blackened white marble eyes and insist that their abusers love them. The words like slush from their mouths, because their lips are blackened.

Anyway. I regard Molly for a moment, then hit her.

What the fuck?

Molly backs away, her hand touching lightly the place just above her heart where my fist struck her. The blow was not terribly hard. But it was not gentle. And just as I am about to apologize, to attempt some lame explanation about Carly Simon and Hot Wheels, she hits me back. Her fist catches me like a hammer below the eye and I’m going to have a ripe blue shiner come morning. Molly holds her fist out away from her body and looks at it, fairly horrified.

Oh, my god. Oh god, she says. I’m sorry.

No, I say. That was the perfect thing to do.

I hold my arms out wide. It seems like the perfect moment for a slow, zooming close-up.

twenty-six.

INTERIOR, HOUSE OF MILLER. NIGHT.

Bright lights come up on the dining room. Jude sits at the head of a long, carved black table that has been placed on a raised stage of rough, unfinished wood. The table is polished and bare except for a single unlit candle in the center. Jude’s hands lie flat on the black surface before her and she stares straight ahead. She wears a white, sheer blouse with elaborate ruffles around a plunging neckline. Her hair is loose. I stand in the doorway where she can’t see me.

Pan the room, slowly. There is no furniture other than the table and chairs and the skeletal light stands. The windows have been covered with heavy black shades. Huck is crouched in a corner. He wears a tool belt and appears to be repairing or modifying an electrical outlet. He glances briefly at me and winks.

Jude is now standing. She sighs, impatient. She takes a book of matches from her pants pocket. The table is so long and wide that she cannot easily reach the candle and so she crawls slowly across it to light the candle and then remains there, stretched on her belly and staring at the flame.

My skin tingles and Molly appears at my shoulder, dressed as before.

Are you ready? she says.

No.

It’s okay, she says. It will be okay.

We enter together, then separate and go to sit at opposite sides of the table. Jude lies between us, still staring at the candle. She doesn’t speak or acknowledge us. I am restless and soon light a cigarette, flicking my ashes on the wooden stage. Molly leans back in her chair and puts her feet up, crossing one leg over the other, the heels of her boots striking the table like hammers.