We’re balancing on a fallen tree, inching our way across the stream — the children up ahead, being held by Amy, and I’m worried about falling. “Don’t go any farther,” I call to Mara, who’s nearly six and has just seen a boy about her age go across. “Why?” she demands. “It’s too scary,” I call. She glares at me. “I’m not afraid,” she says. “You’re afraid. Don’t tell me it’s scary just because you’re afraid.”
I’m nailed to the cross of my boyhood fears — a sissy afraid of hurting himself, a scaredycat, a fag — and the steam of the locker room, the dark Brooklyn street, the face and the elbow of insult rise in me. The wounds are scabbed over, but not healed. Life pries with a dirty fingernail; it’s how we grow. Later, I hug her, tell her I’m glad she’s so smart.
