Henry assesses the boy’s progress. Half the burger gone, a divot dug into the fries. Not bad. This is the most the boy has eaten in a single sitting all week. Still, tonight Henry wants the boy stuffed to the backs of his eyeballs. Wants him waddling out of here, tummy swollen with enough nourishment to pad him for slimmer days to come.

Then again, it is the boy’s birthday, and so Henry asks what day it is.

Junior cocks his jaw into that same defiant crook Michelle always had, right before dropping something snarky. “Tuesday.”

“You know what I mean, smarty-pants.”

Junior’s neck sinks into his shoulder. That familiar, bashful hunch. The one Henry has been trying to wheedle out of the boy with pep talks on posture and confidence, the same one Papa had barked and skull-slapped out of Henry as a kid.

However essential it is to steel a son against the world’s fangs, he still gets it, can’t be too hard. A boy needs more than a father’s hot ore to grow into his own, and so he now decides to do Papa one better. He tugs Junior’s head close, kisses the whorl of his cowlick, and says, “The birthday boy can do whatever he wants.”

And off Junior goes, before Henry can even mention tonight’s surprise. What remains of the boy’s dinner starts going stale under Henry’s watch. Just moments ago, those fries were glistening, the steam casting a slight, woolly mirage in the air above them. Now they’ve got the same pallor and allure of a toppled stack of two-by-fours, more suited for construction than consumption. Even so, he wants some. Inside him births a craving so sharp it feels like the teeth of a rake, but something deeper tells him no. Not your son’s food, not the boy’s birthday dinner. Remind yourself of the consequences, the inpatient counselors had warned. Remind yourself, whenever you get the itch, of who you’re going to hurt besides yourself.