In one of the final sessions of the summer, Mr. Z kicked Workshop up a notch. He wanted Arik and Rosemary to talk about their most private desires. Nothing would be too profane, he stressed. They must learn to channel their insecurities into narrative art.

As usual, they sat cross-legged on the floor, in a small circle facing one another. Circles represented openness and community, Mr. Z liked to say. But with just three people, the shape they formed was in fact a triangle.

Mr. Z gave Arik’s shoulder an encouraging tap. “We don’t judge here. We share. Now, tell us what you want, tell us what you need . . . and remember that wants and needs are two separate things.”

Arik cleared his throat self-consciously and tilted his head from side to side to loosen his neck.

“I was having another one of my feuds with my mother . . .” He paused, looking sheepish.

“Feuds are fun,” nodded Mr. Z. “We are nothing without conflict. Go on.”

“As much as she disses my dad, I can’t help but miss him,” Arik mumbled. “I can’t get over how somebody who seemed so normal and so there, could just disappear like that, like some kind of a ghost . . . But then I realized it’s not my dad that I’m missing but, you know, like, a conceptual dad?” Arik found his groove and began to let go, stretching his long legs out and letting his voice rise with his emotions. “I realized that the thing I’ve been wanting and needing all my life is somebody who could tell me which bands were cool in the eighties and what books to read and how to dress . . . all that stuff. My dad, when he was still around, never even played catch with me, he didn’t know shit about American sports . . . I want, I guess, a cultural dad. And I need, I guess, a positive male role model, someone to impose their tastes on me so I can rebel against them. Right now I have nothing to rebel against . . . My mom is fine with everything I do because she doesn’t know anything.”

When he was done, he looked at Mr. Z for approval, his Adam’s apple bouncing up and down as he swallowed and waited. Mr. Z blinked slowly, then shook his head with a wry smile.

“Come on, you can’t be serious,” he said, not unfriendly. “Those are your wants and needs?”

Arik looked genuinely wounded. “Are they not good enough?”

“In this day and age, when you can get anything your heart desires, anything, and all you want is dear ol’ Daddy?” Mr. Z laughed. “Come on, Sweet Prince. Dig deeper.”

In a quiet voice, Arik said: “I thought you said there’d be no judgment in the Safe Room.”

“Well,” Mr. Z scratched his chin, “I’m speechless. I truly am.” An unnatural pause. “What about you, Rose? What do you desire?”