The ghost of that fry, pressed square along the crease of his tongue, is all Henry sees and tastes when he closes his eyes, but he is a mountain of will power. He is serenity, in total control, Mahatma fucking Gandhi in steeltoes. If he were to deprive his own son of even a single fry, where would it stop? Look at what he’s done, who he’s been. Might have a lot to learn but he sure as shit knows that even a hairline fracture in the floodgates of his discipline can turn him right back into that greedy rat from the picture book—if you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to want a glass of milk, and if you give a mouse a glass of milk, he will so on and so forth, until Henry is coming to at three in the afternoon with his head wedged between a bathtub and toilet that’s crusty with bile and blood from god knows who or what or when or how.

The why, on the other hand, is easy. The why is because he’d lost control.

At least there’s free refills. No guilt for swigging soda to his heart’s content. He gives a quenched, bubbly sigh. Without thinking, he reaches for the heap of ketchup packets, a reserve of sugar for later hunger pangs, but then catches himself. Wouldn’t want to be seen. He risks a glance at the two mothers, who are now huddled over a phone between them. Sly as can be, he sneaks fistful after fistful of the ketchup packets into the pockets of his jeans, then tugs the hem of his crewneck over the lumpy denim bulge.

Is that why he hadn’t sung “Happy Birthday” before digging into dinner? So he wouldn’t shine a spotlight on this pitiful spectacle? He has been and will keep doing everything he possibly can, but all these two mothers would end up seeing is yet another deadbeat dad filling his kid with cholesterol and sodium and processed cheese and cancer and come on—does he really think this an acceptable way to celebrate? Pathetic. Cheap. Tacky. So unabashedly middle American, so irrevocably lower class.

But who’s to say these women are any better than him? They’re right here, too, feeding their daughters the same hot garbage.

Henry has stewed himself into a rage, alone, in a McDonald’s PlayPlace, next to the trash. He collects himself with a deep breath. He exhales and opens his eyes: this whole mental tirade set off by a french fry.