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There is another omission in the text. I promised Arnold that I would not tell anyone about our kiss, but in fact I did. I told my mother as soon as I got home that night. I was two hours late. She had just gotten off the phone with Arnold’s wife to ask if there had been an end-of-the-year party. H…

He was forty-seven, married for twenty-five unfaithful years. He had two children—a daughter my age and a son two years older. His once ascending career as a social realist painter had stalled, and he now sold commercial serigraphs his younger self would have found appalling.

There is a long time in me between knowing and telling.

I looked you straight in the face. I looked with all my soul, directly. I collided with you. Your eyes were limpid, as if a pellicle of silken paper had fluttered off them—the kind that sheathes illustrations in precious books. And, for the first time, your voice was limpid too. “You know what I’ve…

When we had left the village, crossed the bridge, and were climbing the path toward your house, I took you under the elbow, and you flashed that special sidelong smile that told me you were happy. Suddenly I had the desire to tell you about Pal Palych’s little wrinkles, about the spangled St. Isaac…