MAX

When my daughter said they’d named their son Max “because he looked like a Max,” I didn’t believe her. “All babies look like Churchill,” I said, not let- ting on how excited I was to be a grandfather. In my heart of hearts, I knew Max was named after my father Malachi and not my ex-wife’s mother Margo.

I looked for Max in the infant ward, where most babies, swaddled in striped cotton blankets, were indistinguishable: bald, red-faced, and bawling. I located Max easily enough. He looked like a Max, and not like a baby–with curly grayish-black hair, spectacles, an earring, and a fat cigar clamped in his mouth, which (I would learn) he removed and held in his tiny dimpled hand while breastfeeding.

How did a newborn get this way? “It’s a response to some unresolved dilemma in the family unit,” Dr. Walsh said. “Even in utero, the infant senses it has work to do, and assumes the persona best suited to the task.” When my ex-wife Jane arrived she took one look and fainted. I held her limp hand while the nurses tried to revive her. Son-in-law Benjy showed up next, looking (as usual) like a kid on the first day of school: skinny, weak-chinned, and earnest. He handed out cigars. “Max got the first one,” he crowed.

Revived, Jane cried, “Get those pollutants out of here!”

Max stared through the glass, unblinking, brow creased. Then he took the cigar from his lips and tipped it, dribbling ash.