Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer

that?”
    “No. All day.”
    “It mixes in your stomach anyway,” Max said from the threshold.
    “Where’d you come from?” Jacob asked.
    “Mom’s vagina hole,” Benjy said.
    “And you’re going to die anyway,” Max continued, “so who cares what touches the chicken, which is dead anyway.”
    Benjy turned to Jacob: “Is that true, Dad?”
    “Which part?”
    “I’m going to die?”
    “Why, Max? In what way was this necessary?”
    “I’m going to die!”
    “Many, many years from now.”
    “Does that really make a difference?” Max asked.
    “It could be worse,” Irv said. “You could be Argus.”
    “Why would it be worse to be Argus?”
    “You know, one paw in the oven.”
    Benjy let out a plaintive wail, and then, as if carried on a light beam from wherever she’d been, Julia opened the door and rushed in.
    “What happened?”
    “What are you doing back?” Jacob asked, hating everything about the moment.
    “Dad says I’m gonna die.”
    “In fact,” Jacob said with a forced laugh, “what I
said
was, you’re going to live a very, very,
very
long life.”
    Julia brought Benjy onto her lap and said, “Of course you aren’t going to die.”
    “Then make that
two
frozen burritos,” Irv said.
    “Hi, darling,” Deborah said to Julia. “It was beginning to feel a bit estrogen-starved in here.”
    “Why did I get a boo-boo, Mama?”
    “You don’t have a boo-boo,” Jacob said.
    “On my knee,” Benjy said, pointing at nothing.
“There.”
    “You must have fallen,” Julia said.
    “Why?”
    “There is literally no boo-boo.”
    “Because falling is part of life,” Julia said.
    “It’s the epitome of life,” Max said.
    “Nice vocab, Max.”
    “Epitome?”
Benjy asked.
    “Essence of,” Deborah said.
    “Why is falling the epitome of life?”
    “It isn’t,” Jacob said.
    “The earth is always falling toward the sun,” Max said.
    “Why?” Benjy asked.
    “Because of gravity,” Max said.
    “No,” Benjy said, addressing his question to Jacob. “Why isn’t falling the epitome of life?”
    “Why
isn’t
it?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m not sure I understand your question.”
    “Why?”
    “Why am I not sure that I understand your question?”
    “Yeah, that.”
    “Because this conversation has become confusing, and because I’m just a human with severely limited intelligence.”
    “Jacob.”
    “I’m dying!”
    “You’re overreacting.”
    “No I amn’t!”
    “No you
aren’t
.”
    “I amn’t.”
    “
Aren’t
, Benjy.”
    Deborah: “
Kiss it
, Jacob.”
    Jacob kissed Benjy’s nonexistent boo-boo.
    “I can carry our refrigerator,” Benjy said, not quite sure if he was ready to be done with his crying.
    “That’s wonderful,” Deborah said.
    “Of course you can’t,” Max said.
    “Max said of course I can’t.”
    “Give the kid a break,” Jacob whispered to Max at conversational volume. “If he says he can lift the fridge, he can lift the fridge.”
    “I can carry it far away.”
    “I’ve got it from here,” Julia said.
    “I can control the microwave with my mind,” Max said.
    “No
way
,” Jacob said to Julia, too casually to be believable. “We’re doing great. We’ve been having a great time. You walked in at a bad moment. Unrepresentative. But everything is cool, and this is your day.”
    “Off from
what
?” Benjy asked his mother.
    “What?” Julia asked.
    “What do you need a day off from?”
    “Who said I needed a day off?”
    “Dad just did.”
    “I said we were giving you a day off.”
    “Off from
what
?” Benjy asked.
    “Exactly,” Irv said.
    “Us, obviously,” Max said.
    So much sublimation: domestic closeness had become intimate distance, intimate distance had become shame, shame had become resignation, resignation had become fear, fear had become resentment, resentment had become self-protection. Julia often thought that if theycould just trace the string back to the source of their withholding, they might actually find