In church, Nick's mother leans across me to ask Nick why he's wearing his glasses instead of his contact lenses. He comes clean, telling her that he has a blemish near his eye, and how the frames of his eyeglasses camouflage the unscrupulous beast (really, to attack on EASTER SUNDAY like that...just terrible!).

In a gooey Full House moral-of-the-story moment, one wherein I heard, there in God's house, Michael Jackson singing, "You are not alooooone..." I whispered to him that I had an upsetting discovery of the same sort that very morning, in the hollow of my right cheek. We bonded...I thought we really bonded. I thought I shared something deeply personal to help him deal with his own troubles.

Then, later, in my grandmother's assisted living suite, he sat behind me—me on the footstool, him on the corresponding glider. Leaning forward to kiss the right side of my neck, he caught sight of my cheek and jerked away...spitting in his hysteria, "MOUNT ST. HELENS!"