Stories
Bila
It is after we try the charts with the stars, the timeouts, the “ignore and isolate” strategy, that we tell Sila about our other son, Bila. Bila, we say, is our first son. He’s your brother. My brother? Yes. He lives in the backyard now. In the hedges. And he can never come inside. Why can’t he come inside, Sila wants to know. Well honey, we say, he was so bad, just a bad boy. We made him sleep outside until he straightened up.
The Last Detail
It started with the grass clippings. I’d just finished mowing the front yard. True, the rows lacked the zigzag symmetry of the adjacent lawns, and the edges were a bit on the shaggy side—I hadn’t yet invested in one of those trimmer gizmos—but I was nonetheless pleased with my accomplishment.