Grief

When I was in the second grade, I failed a clock-reading test.

“Tell me,” the teacher said, “when one minute has passed.”

I had managed to learn, erroneously, that one minute started when the second hand passed the minute hand, and ended when it passed it again. Sixty-one seconds, not sixty. I was wrong, in a very rigid, seven-year-old way.

Another kid in class insisted a minute had passed when the second hand swept the 12, no matter where you started, and we got into a screaming match....