“Mom and Dad are … crazy.” Natalie walked in the direction of the kitchen, and I followed. “Mainly Mom. The whole baby thing. I don’t know what their problem is.” She was wearing tight jeans and a glittery T-shirt with a picture of a purple unicorn on it. I could see her sharp shoulder blades and ribs through her shirt. I could see her hip bones, too, and wondered whether she was eating. Whether her parents’ anxiety had infected her.

She sat down at the kitchen island, on one of the leather-and-stainless kitchen stools, and I sat next to her. Her eyes appeared huge in her face and her skin was even more translucent than usual. She chewed on her fingernails or her fingers. I couldn’t tell which.

Itzhak lay in his usual spot on the kitchen floor nearby. He whimpered quietly.

“Mom said that you have a son in California. Why don’t you ever talk about him?”

I wasn’t troubled by Natalie’s comment. I’d known that the Straubs were eventually going to ask more about my son. But I’d grown to understand who Jasper was in a fuller way and would actually relish talking about him. “I haven’t wanted to bother you or your mom with my troubles.”

Natalie examined her fingernails, which were bitten down to the quick. “I know you’re divorced. Piper’s parents got divorced. Sometimes I think my parents should too. They act like they hate each other.” She wore a bracelet made out of colored beads that spelled her name. “Piper said her parents are better friends now that they’re divorced.”

“All marriages have problems, but they usually work out.”

“Why didn’t yours?”

The late-afternoon sun flooded in through the three sets of bifold doors behind Natalie, casting long shadows into the room.

“There are exceptions. You need to make a good choice.” I squinted in order to see her.

“What’s your son’s name?” she asked.

“Jasper.” I could see Jasper in my mind’s eye, golden skin, dark locks of hair, large brown eyes, small and wiry body. I visualized him in California with his father, at the beach among the waves and whitecaps, his toes sinking into the wet sand beneath him.

Itzhak rearranged himself on the floor. Natalie petted him with her bare foot. “When is your son coming back?”

“Soon, I hope.” The sun moved behind a large branch of the Straubs’ cherry tree, so I was temporarily relieved from the glare in my eyes.

She picked up a pencil resting on the kitchen counter and twirled it in her fingers. “I’d like to meet him.”

“One day.” Jasper was my creation, just as a child from my womb would be my creation, were I to have one. And because I knew him so intimately, every eyelash, each toenail, I could speak about him with complete candor. Without apology.