I have long admired Thomas Edison. I wonder what he would think, like I wonder what you think, about the recent societal discussions of neurotypicality across the human spectrum.

I love my aunts like mothers, Mano and Sister Agnes Mary. We are all of us kids a team effort, the product of the collective maternal efforts of you three sisters. But love like a mother is a pale simile for the way I love you, Ruth, my actual mother, for the way my heart went sonorous and resonant when you touched my face, deep music vibrating all through me, like a double bass.

When Chris pitches our hybrid hydraulic braking system to city managers and CEOs, he calibrates his emphasis on potential savings in price versus the potential savings in cost after he reads the room. For him, the faces reflect the degree of volatility in the oil markets, which is based on forecasts of an invisible future supply and demand, the degree of instability in the Middle East, or the possibly unsettling results of a long-shot presidential campaign. Beyond the sociopolitical factors, Chris, like all skilled salesmen, makes spot judgments about values and truth and bait.

It occurs to me that Chris sees me as a pale simile father, despite my lifetime of striving to be the man of the house (house being a metaphor now for family generally, for you and Chris, especially). I am only eight years older than him, after all, but how often did I hear that “man of the house” bit from you, from Mano, from Sister? I wish you'd understood then the way I imagine you do now, Mom, the ways that operated on me. I forgave you all eternally long ago in light of the many other ways you shaped me, but I wonder if this is one of your enduring memories: my little boy heart, earnestly beating, the three of you taking turns stacking responsibilities like lead weights upon it.

Maybe there's another sort of parent love out there, Mom, that Chris needs, and maybe Del is ready to give it to him.

Love, Charley

To: Mom

From: Charley

Subject: Project Gold Rush

August 19, 2016

Dear Mom,

The hydraulic braking systems we design and build capture the energy of deceleration so that it can be applied to acceleration, and when the price of gas is high, Chris describes eloquently the available cash savings in fuel alone. These days of cheap gas, however, make price less of an incentive for investment, so he emphasizes the costs. Lower fuel efficiency could mean that Los Angeles, San Francisco, even Reno may someday rival Delhi and Beijing for unlivable air quality, for nature-deprived children with asthma and poor muscle tone. Chris makes visible the connection between commercial vehicle fleets and the melting ice caps, makes the suits believe he can help them rescue a polar bear from drowning in an endlessly warming Arctic waterway. He makes the polar bears personal.