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Carl grew impatient with his son’s reluctance to play ball, or to engage in anything competitive. Johnny always preferred activities that kept him alone.
    “When he goes to school,” said Carl, “I want things to be different.”
    “They will be.” Helen tried to be reassuring.
    Crow bought his brother some robots and a G.I. Joe, thinking his dad might approve of these toys. Johnny liked the G.I. Joe, but by the age of six he preferred to be with his mother in the kitchen.
    “You’re turning him into a goddamn sissy, Helen.”
    “Don’t say that.”
    “I’ll say whatever I want.”
                      
    Johnny did love being near his mother. She spoke to him in a way that made him calm, secure. What he needed from her was her nearness, her presence around him. Even at six or seven, if she was in the kitchen, Johnny asked to help measure or stir whatever she was cooking. She pulled a kitchen chair to the stove so he could stand beside her, be almost her same height, and see what she was stirring.
    “We’ll make fudge. Want to?”
    Johnny nodded.
    She showed him how to level a cup of sugar with a knife. He kept everything separate in white bowls, until she told him what to mix first, what to mix second.
    The first time they made fudge he stuck his finger into the bowl of cocoa and the bitter taste on his tongue brought tears to his eyes. He thought he had somehow ruined the chocolate by putting his finger into the silky powder.
    Helen explained that when sugar was added to the cocoa, it would taste the way he hoped. She pointed out to him the word
unsweetened
on the can, and the word seemed so large in his mind that he planned to mention it at school.
    “Don’t tell Daddy we made fudge,” his mother said.
    “Why not?”
    “He doesn’t want you to be inside all the time.”
    “I know. He thinks girls do this stuff.”
    “Yes.”
    “Did you want a girl instead of me?”
    Helen stopped and wiped her hands on her apron. “No. Of course not.” Her balance became precarious. “
You
are what I wanted, exactly what I wanted.”
    She lifted him up. He dangled a long spoon dripping chocolate onto the floor. Johnny squirmed because her fingers tickled his sides. When she put him back onto the chair, he stirred the bubbly mixture. He could not make his eyes leave the dark boiling liquid. He stirred, trying to calm the roiling, keep it from burning.
    “I like to be here with you,” he said.
    Helen didn’t know what to do about her love for Johnny. Looking at his face pricked her heart and made her insanely proud.
    Johnny’s favorite moment was folding a tablespoon of butter into the chocolate as it cooled, seeing the yellowy clump dissolve into the chocolate mixture. He swished the yellow around, making concentric designs, until the butter had disappeared. They waited for the fudge to cool; then his mother began to beat it. Johnny liked the flopping sound of the spoon against the thickening chocolate. To him, it was the sound of making fudge.
    His mother let him pour the fudge onto a white platter. Later he would cut the candy into small pieces and pile them into a high design on the same plate.
    One night, after Johnny’s eighth birthday, Carl suggested that Johnny go off to summer camp.
    “Some of the guys at the mill say their sons go away to a camp in the North Carolina mountains. They have competitions and give trophies at the end. Hell, they say everybody wins at least three ribbons. I think it’d be good for him.”
    “How long would he be gone?”
    “There you go, Helen. See? You hold on too tight.”
    “How long, Carl?”
    “Eight weeks.”
    “Four.”
    “Six then. Eight next year.”
    “Let’s see if he likes it.”
    So at age eight Johnny went to Camp Cherokee. As he packed to leave, he insisted on taking some books and a sketch pad to draw plants and birds.
    Carl objected. “Listen, son, you’re not going to have time to do any of that stuff. If you take it, you’ll