Signal Fires

by Dani Shapiro

“And why do you think it’s so important to you?” Ben asks. Had he ever been this patient with his own son? In the years before Theo became inaccessible, in those precious years when he would still have allowed himself to be seen, to be known—had Ben taken the time?

It’s possible to grow up in the wrong house, on the wrong street, in the wrong town, in the wrong part of the country. It’s possible to go to the wrong school. To have the wrong dad. To be pushed to do the wrong things. But it is also possible to survive all these psychic indignities if you have one, maybe two people who recognize you for who you are. His mom saw him. By seeing him, she saved him. And on one winter night half his life ago, an old doctor slung his arm around him and swayed back and forth as if he and Waldo were both hearing the same barely audible music.