Big mistake, I think, treading rough surf on an unguarded beach in Maui. The water’s too deep for a little boy, too wild for a grown woman who still doggy paddles.

“I was a drummer,” he insisted, drawing my attention from his bulging belly, skin taut like a snare but less tympanic. My first solo paracentesis had history, jangling my nerves.

My dad rented out part of a resort. Loot bags, each waiting to be taken home by a party guest, stand neatly arranged in rows, like soldiers on a training field.

A hand-stenciled sign planted beside the tree read, We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Uterine atony,” I hear the doctor say as the neonatologist is showing me my brand-new baby. I glance at my blood pressure before looking at my son.