"Paul!" he shouted. "Hi, Paul! Do you have my superhero cartoon?"

A Spandexed man on a unicycle sliced past me.

"Watch it, fatty," he said.

"Fuck you, clown," I snarled.

The man's arm shot back. A spray of daisies sprouted in his fist.

Twenty-one

We ate dinner in silence, or near silence, as Bernie, naked, wet from the bath, speared disks of Not Dog with his fork and chuckled knowingly at something he most likely knew nothing about. Maura kept her eyes down, sipped her wine. I pretended to relish my Swedish meatballs, which I'd picked up with some other groceries after leaving Paul and Maura in the park.

It had been nothing but pleasantries among us, but the flustered way they had gathered themselves after Bernie called to them charged our exchange. Paul had tried to excuse himself but Maura insisted he stay. They could walk back to the office together. Lunch hour was over anyway. Why hadn't I called? Maura wanted to know. I told her about Happy Salamander, the defection of the Newts. But why hadn't I called? Paul looked shaken, though still wonderfully tan. He promised Bernie he'd finish his animation soon, led Maura away.

"Paul's my grown-up friend," said Bernie.

"What about me?"

But I'm not sure he heard. He'd already darted away, disappeared into a throng of Russian tourists, then just disappeared.

"Bernie!" I dipped into that familiar parental trot, the one that covers more ground than walking but does not yet reek of pure panic. It's important to smile a lot while you maintain a steady pace and call out your child's name in an almost jovial manner, as though it could be a game, and even if it's not a game, you still aren't worried, it's happened before, though not too often, and besides, it's age appropriate, so you don't consider it an issue requiring therapy or, heaven help us, a pharmaceutical regimen. This is no big deal, the trot and the smile signal, though it sure would be great to locate the little scamp. But hey, the kid gives back a lot of love, and usually you're a bit more in control of the situation, though you understand child-rearing throws its curve-balls, its cutters and sinkers, too, but still, this is nothing compared to the hard work the parents of, for example, Down kids must put in, or even the folks with autistic children, where you're doing all that special needs slogging and not even getting those sloppy Down kisses, no, your kid, he's a regular kid, maybe with some impulse-control deficiencies, or dealies, as you laughingly call them with your wife, or maybe, and you're definitely willing to entertain this notion, especially in this era of so much entitled helicopter coddling, or whatever the term is where the children are literally enfolded in cocoons of helicopters that entitle them to do whatever they want, because of the culture, maybe this very normal, regular, active boy, who happens to live in a social strata that condemns masculine energies in all its children, maybe he just needs to have his coat pulled, to be briefed, as it were, in an energetic masculine way, to be boxed or cuffed or whacked upside some part of him in that no-nonsense, simple folkways folk way (because throttling and such, it's worked for thousands of years, no?), or at least persuaded in a compelling and lasting fashion that it is not okay to just dash off into a throng of Russian (gas-rich, reassembling their rabid empire) tourists and ignore his father's cries, yes, it could be that he needs to be squared away on that score in a more visceral sense, though certainly not in the sense of a spanking or a hiding, such tactics, alas, never work, but anyway that is a separate discussion. Really, right now, you just need to get a visual on the little shit, pronto.

After the trot comes the flat-out run, all heaves and stumbles, the smile long vanished, but it never came to that, because I found Bernie, or he found me, his wrist in the grip of a stout woman in a business suit.

"Yours?"

"Bernie," I said. "You are in big trouble. Thanks."

"No worries," said the woman. "He was just chasing a pigeon."

"Thanks again. I really appreciate it."

"I've got three at home."

"Pigeons?"

"No, kids. Here."

She handed me Bernie's wrist.

"He's a fast one. But I know how to sneak up on them."

"I owe you," I said, dragged Bernie away.

We stood behind a tree near the edge of the park.

"What are you doing, Daddy?"

"I think I'm going to cry," I said.

"Don't do that," said Bernie.

"Okay," I said, picked up him up, laid my cheek on his shoulder.

"Bernie," I said. "I love you so much."

"That's nice, Daddy."

"Yes," I said. "It is nice."

"You want to know something else nice?"

"I sure do, Bernie."

"I love mommy's friend Paul. Do you think Paul loves me, Daddy?"

They weren't like dolls, because dolls had no feelings. Kids had feelings, just not any remotely related to yours.

Now we sat at dinner saying nothing. Some families did this every night. Hollywood made poignant movies about them. But we'd always been blabbermouths.

Bernie chuckled again.

"What's so funny?" I said.

He looked up at me with odd fervency. He was holding his miniature half-on between his fingers, thwacking it against the chair seat.

"Daddy," he said.

"Yes, Bern."

"This isn't a winky."

"It's not?"

"It's a video game."

I looked down at my son's lap. An odd benevolence surged through me. I had maybe made peace with Bernie's foreskin. His freak flap, let it fly. If he ever wanted to be a real Jew he could have it snipped. Nobody would ever be able to question his commitment after that. Besides, if he wanted to be a real Jew, he'd probably have to renounce me. Because I was a fake Jew who spent a lot of time on the fake internet rubbing my video game. Because the real Jews scared the hell out of me, same as the real Muslims and the real Christians, the real Hindus. Because they believed. How could they believe? Fine, come kill me as a Jew, flog me to death in a desert quarry, bayonet me in the Pale, gas me in your Polish camp, behead me on your camcorder, I still would not believe. To me that was the true test of courage: to not submit to the faith they assume you possess and will kill you for. So now I loved Bernie's foreskin. Or at least I'd made peace with it.

"I've made peace with it," I whispered.

"Excuse me?" said Maura.

"I said I've made peace with it."

"That was quick."

"What do you mean?"

"Wait a minute," said Maura. "What have you made peace with?"

"You tell me."

"Not so fast."

"What do you think I've made peace with?"

"That's what I'm asking you."

"You tell me," I said.

"I think we're going around in a circle."

"Which means what?"

"What do you mean which means what?"

"It could mean there is something you don't want to tell me."

"No, Milo, it's you who won't do the telling. Don't you see? You won't tell me what you've made peace with. So, I can't tell you what I don't want to tell you until I know what it is that you've made peace with."

"I'm no longer at peace."

"Good. You probably shouldn't be."

This is how I knew my wife was having an affair with Paul. The knowledge arrived with a pressured sensation, a pallet of wood on my chest. Deck wood. For a Mission-style deck. I stood, moved to the door.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to get some air."

"Daddy, will you get me some?"

"Air?"

"Yeah."

"I'll try, Bern."

"You can't go out now," said Maura.

It was true. We had the evening ritual ahead of us-the dishes, Bernie's books, his teethbrushing, his pre-tuck-in piss, which often required some degree of cajolement, his stories, his songs. It would be a kind of betrayal of the ideals of co-parenting to walk out now. Then again, sliding your tongue along the seam of Paul the Animator's smooth and perfumed scrotum had to hold formidable rank in the hierarchies of betrayal. Maybe someday a civil court judge would sort through the equivalencies. Most of me hoped not.