The plastic prescription vial contains thirty doses. I press the cap down, twist it counterclockwise, and shake a cylindrical pill into my hand. It is an ugly gray, like dryer lint, like newly poured concrete, like a bullet. I know my daughter will notice this.

When he diagnosed my three-month-old, Fiona, with a chromosomal disorder, the redheaded, cherubic medical geneticist did not use the phrase “mentally retarded” — thank God, or the gods of rhetoric, or just the politically correct medical school the young doctor had attended.

Each year on April 25 my mother calls to remind me that it’s the anniversary of my father’s death, so I should take a moment to think about him.

And even after all that, even after everything I’d said to him earlier, he still came to say good night before he went to bed, the way he had when he was a little boy.