They also fail to illuminate any inner reality. These disconnected images don’t knit together into a picture of a life. But how much of our joyous life will he remember? What I recall from when I was four are the red-painted nails of a mean babysitter the brushed-silver stereo in my parents’ apartment a particular orange-carpeted hallway some houseplants in the sun and a glimpse of my father’s face, perhaps smuggled into memory from a photograph. My son and I have great times together lately, we’ve been building Lego versions of familiar places (the coffee shop, the bathroom) and perfecting the “flipperoo,” a move in which I hold his hands while he somersaults backward from my shoulders to the ground. I have few memories of being four-a fact I find disconcerting now that I’m the father of a four-year-old.
