After his experience with Becky’s project, Stefan told me, “I feel lifted up by this. I think it’s helping.”

His conditional enthusiasm alarmed me, but I tried to paper over my misgivings. Life was not going to offer him a sustained emotional high. I wanted to talk to him about this, but I didn’t want to so pointedly burst such a fragile bubble.

One night, Stefan was getting ready to pick Will up; they were going out to a club to dance and Stefan was really looking forward to it.

“I used to love to dance, when I...well, before,” he said to me. “I almost said when I was young. Do you think I’ll remember how?”

“The way people your age dance, no,” I said.

“Geez, Mom, disco queen, do you have to be such a ger?” He’d called me this before, short for “geriatric.” In a withering parody of my own voice, he said, “Why, the way you young people go on, you never get a haircut, you never save a nickel...” He took a fork from the silverware drawer and sat down with me at the table, expertly plucking first the tomato peppers and then the Greek olives and salty cheese squares from my salad. Finally, I jabbed the back of his hand with my own fork. “Nice,” he said, and drifted to the refrigerator. “Oh! There’s another whole one in here!” He went silent and I belatedly realized he was making short work of the other salad.

“That’s for Dad!” I called.

“Well, where’s mine?”

“I didn’t make you one. I didn’t know you wanted one.”

“I worked all day!”

“So did I.”

“I mean, I really worked all day, lifting bags of potting soil, dragging hoses around...”

“So did I.”

“Yeah, dragging...verbs around.”

I told him, “You have no idea how heavy a verb can get. Go ahead and make yourself a salad.”

“It’s okay. This one’s practically gone... I’ll just stuff some more lettuce and olives in the bowl. He’ll never know the difference.”

“Well, you’re certainly saving some nickels.”

Stefan’s silence breathed affront. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. It’s Friday night. I’m looking forward to going out. You make some belittling remarks about my generation and then bitch about me eating fifty cents’ worth of iceberg lettuce. Now I’m in a great mood. You’re a real antidepressant, Theaitsa,” he said, using the Greek endearment for my name. When he was little, we called him “Stefanakis mou,” or my little Stefan. My mother still did.

I thought of that, and I felt bad, and asked him to sit with me for a moment.