Remember when Donald Trump bragged he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose a single vote? An uncharacteristic thing for him to say, in that it was true. That’s a key to understanding what’s going on right now, but not something that gets stated plainly. Once you get in the habit of ignoring reality, the specifics of the reality being ignored hardly matter. One benefit of this repetition is that I can play with my responses. “No Dad, not in the usual sense of the word.” “Two hundred and fifty-six pages, Dad,” I’d answer. “Two hundred and fifty-six pages,” I’d answer. I first noticed him doing it 10 years ago, when we were visiting my parents in Colorado. He can observe the same thing, or ask the same question, over and over, and I reply in a steady, patient voice. I don’t argue with my father, don’t correct him. One stairway banister snapped in half and is inexpertly repaired. There are gaps in the scarred floorboards at his feet.
Paint peels off the radiator in front of him. The aluminum siding is dinged and piebald. Our house is 115 years old and not at all perfect. “This is a beautiful house,” my father says, sitting in our living room, looking around.
Robert Steinberg, at home in Colorado in February.
