What he did was weep. With a convulsive, shredded sound, as if fabric were being rent or animals slaughtered. He was so small that his most solemn sorrowful sounds were still very high, like shrieking, but colored with more than shrillness. He sounded as if he were being physically pierced, a frozen wind whistling through his most tender inner parts. I would lie in my room in the early twilight, convinced that my father was beating him, wishing that my father were beating him, that it was simple like that.

His room was painted a series of encouraging colors:…