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well, Patrick will forg ive her, just like he always does.
    “Acting out,” I repeat, looking Miss Lydia in the eye. “Did Nathaniel tell Dan ny again that I'd put him in jail if he didn't share the dinosaurs?”
    “No, this time it's aggressive behavior. Nathaniel's been ruining other child ren's work-knocking down block structures, and at one point he scribbled over a little girl's drawing.”
    I offer my most winning smile. “Nathaniel wasn't quite himself this morning . Maybe it's some kind of virus.”
    Miss Lydia frowned. “I don't think so, Mrs. Frost. There are other incidents ... he was climbing the swing set today, and jumping off the top-”
    “Kids do that kind of thing all the time!”
    “Nina,” Miss Lydia says gently, Miss Lydia who in four years has never us ed my first name, “was Nathaniel speaking before he came to school this m orning?”
    “Well, of course he-” I begin, and then I stop. The bed-wetting, the rushed breakfast, the black mood-there is much I remember about Nathaniel that morning, but the only voice I hear in my mind is my own. I would know my son's voice anywhere. Pitched and bubbled; I used to wish I could bottle it, like the Sea Witch who stole from the Little Mermaid. His mistakes-hossipal and phghetti and apple spider-were speed bumps that migh t keep him from growing up too soon; correct them and he'd reach that desti nation long before I was ready. As it is, things are already changing too q uickly. Nathaniel no longer mixes up his pronouns; he has mastered dipthong s-although I sorely miss hearing him say brudder like a Bowery cop. Just ab out the only hiccup in speech I can still lay claim to is Nathaniel's absol ute inability to pronounce the letters L and R.
    In my memory, we are sitting at the kitchen table. Pancakes-shaped like ghos ts, with chocolate chip eyes-are stacked high in front of us, along with bac on and orange juice. A big breakfast is the way we bribe Nathaniel on the Su ndays that Caleb and I feel guilty enough to go to Mass. The sun hits the li p of my glass and a rainbow spills onto my plate. “What's the opposite of le ft,” I ask.
    Without missing a beat, Nathaniel says, “White.”
    Caleb flips a pancake. As a kid, he lisped. Listening to Nathaniel brings ab ject pain, and the belief that his son will be teased mercilessly, too. He t hinks we should correct Nathaniel, and asked Miss Lydia if Nathaniel's pronu nciations could be fixed by a speech pathologist. He thinks a child going in to kindergarten next year should have the eloquence of Laurence Olivier. “Th en what's the opposite of white?” Caleb asks.
    “Bwack.”
    “Rrrrigbt,” Caleb stresses. “Try it. Rrrrright.”
    “Wivwwhite.”
    “Just leave it, Caleb,” I say.
    But he can't. “Nathaniel,” he presses, “the opposite of left is right. And the op posite of right is ... ?”
    Nathaniel thinks about this for a moment. “Ewase,” he answers.
    “God help him,” Caleb mutters, turning back to the stove. Me, I just wink at Nathaniel. “Maybe He will,” I say. In the parking lot of the nursery school, I kneel down so that Nathaniel and I are face-to-face. “Honey, tell me what's wrong.”
    Nathaniel's collar is twisted; his hands are stained red with finger-paint. He stares at me with wide, dark eyes and doesn't say a thing.
    All the words he isn't speaking rise in my throat, thick as bile. “Honey,” I r epeat. “Nathaniel?”
    We just think he needs to be at home, Miss Lydia had said. Maybe you can sp end this afternoon with him. “Is that what you need?” I ask out loud, my ha nds sliding from his shoulders to the soft moon of his face. “Some quality time?” Smiling hard, I fold him into a hug. He is heavy and warm and fits i nto my arms seamlessly, although at several other points in Nathaniel's lif e-his infancy, his toddlerhood-I have been certain that we matched equally as well.
    “Does your throat hurt?” Shake.
    “Does anything hurt?” Another