Jonah sleeps and sleeps. If I hadn’t known him his entire life, I might suspect anemia or hypothyroid, but I do know him, and he’s just lazy. Maybe he’s the one who should have gone to military school. Maybe we made the kid soft.

I wake him up at eight o’clock to tell him the plan, taking a second to look around a room that’s only ever been his part-time home at best. To my surprise, the floor is moderately clean. No dirty plates of moldy food in sight, no jizz-filled socks. Maybe he is growing up. Maybe there’s hope for him after all.

“We’re leaving for the marina at nine,” I say.

He moans and mumbles, “Sounds good,” before rolling over, still buried in covers. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

I leave the door open so he’ll be vulnerable to downstairs chatter and the smell of bacon while I buy and print fishing licenses, my treat. Fifteen minutes later, he still hasn’t appeared, so I go back and nudge again, and he whines, “I’m up. I said, I’m up.”

Back in the kitchen, I bemoan my son’s bad manners, making sure Nick knows my parenting isn’t to blame, and Elizabeth comes to my rescue, saying, “Why don’t you and Nick head to the dock and get the boat ready. I’ll blast Carly Simon and send Jonah over when he gets his ass in gear.”

There it is. She has my back. Her whole demeanor has brightened, and I feel bad for being annoyed with her before. She’s so damn good most of the time, and Nick’s perviness isn’t her fault. She’s taken a shower. She’s wearing a bra. Maybe she does see Oliver or Pip, but maybe that’s not so dreadful, because if Nick represents an opportunity to flex repressed maternal instincts, I should support the exercise. Heaven knows she didn’t get the chance with Jonah. Elizabeth missed the first half of his life. She’s never seen her DNA imprinted on an infant. I would have had another child if she’d wanted one—hell, I’d have had two—but it was her decision to send me off to get snipped. She was the one who made that call.

“I’m not willing to trade my autonomy for a seven-million-dollar pet,” she used to say. Remarkably, she’d say it with zero emotion, let alone grief. I’d argue she lost her autonomy the day she married me, technically, and that Jonah is not a pet, but she’d hold her ground, saying only, “You know what I mean.”

I guess I do.