The younger one does a little dance on the edge of the jetty. But although my father doesn’t have very much time left, and I have some, my boys still have all the time in the world. When people ask the ages of my boys, I round up to give myself time to get used to where they are going. Came back home with a stillness and patience where once the rocking fury had been. One day, over the course of many years-there is no other way to put it-he took all his great anger out to sea, let the wind out of its sails, and came back home without it. If his life seems long to me, it’s because he has changed more than anyone I know. He isn’t yet old, but at this very moment I can’t recall exactly how old he is. My father, unusually quiet today, wearing a hat against the sun, watches too. I watch them, my two boys, from the sand. The waves are coming in from such a long way off that no one can say when or where their turbulence began, only that they are the transmittance of an energy that finally breaks here and resolves into the shore. It is early summer, June, under the great bell of the sky, on the island on which I was raised. My boys are standing at the edge of the jetty, and either they will jump or they won’t jump. Editor’s Note: Read an interview with Nicole Krauss about her writing process.
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