“So they saw a play,” I said. “So?” I liked the idea of a kid at a play: head bobbing at knee level, following me to museums and parks and afternoon pubs. Having a kid didn’t mean we were doomed to languish in pits of plastic balls.

“And we could figure out what he saw, right? We could find the script, interview audience members. But what gets me is the time around the play. Like what kind of person—and not to be sexist, but what kind of woman—sees a four-year-old lost in Midtown Manhattan and doesn’t call the police? Instead she takes him to a goddamn play.”

I looked at the ceiling. Maggie must be angry we were taking so long. Stress impaired conception. I pictured the wrinkles around her mouth deepening. I was afraid to face her, afraid of the girl who’d lied about her brilliant novel.

“Something bad happened. Sunil wasn’t the same after. He turned into this mini-adult. He didn’t bounce around like he used to. You don’t understand—he was a puppy before. These questions and silly voices all the time—even in timeouts he’d dance in his corner—and then, nothing. And it wasn’t just the play. He didn’t understand the play.”

“You think she molested him?” My heart skipped. I hadn’t met Sunil, but I pictured him anxiously eager, little hands grabbing the air, clowning as he bounced from foot to foot.

“We’ll never know.” A moody expression bled over Arun. “Because he doesn’t know, but it affected him. He can’t tell us. Did she touch him? Did she say something? Did she show him a picture?” He gripped his knee. “Whenever I think of having kids, I fall into that panic. I know it would never happen again, but a thousand situations like it would. Little moments, sure, but I can’t stand the idea of letting the kid loose to live a private life.” He shook his head. “That spooks me.”

“I get it,” I said.

“I shouldn’t say this crap to you.” He raised his tumbler. “Your rainbow juice made me do it.”

I lifted my water, and we clicked glasses.

“But it’s okay—you’re not paranoid,” he said. “You haven’t had my family.” He didn’t know about my father, how I’d been unwanted. My story was pathetic in the face of the darkness he’d just shared.

“You’ll be a beautiful mother,” he said, regret wet in his eyes, whether for his own childhood or his missed fatherhood, I couldn’t tell.

I had a flash of wishing I’d been Arun’s mother. No, Sunil’s. I saw a hairy, upright beast lurching across the stage, a boy too shy to seize the sleeve of his chaperone. When it came down to assuming responsibility for a floppy body, loose in the world, I was sure I could be flexible and resilient, that I could put a little person first. Not only that I could do it but that I wanted to, and not only that I wanted to but that I had to.