Last night I braised a bunch of asparagus in salted water for four minutes, took them out, and added them to a saute pan that had a little olive oil and a few whole cloves of garlic that I had heated until they were golden. I let the asparagus lie in the pan over a medium flame until they were just thinking of taking on a sear, and then I turned off the heat, reseasoned them with kosher salt, tossed them with a tab of butter, some torn mint, basil and chive, and rolled them out onto a platter halfway full of roasted potatoes. I fried some eggs, seasoned them, flipped them over just long enough to set the white, but not the yolk, and set them on top of my vegetables. I shaved on great big pieces of salty romano and ate. Ferd just had the whites of the eggs and potatoes. He used to be an asparagus man, but he’s not any more. I gave him a snickerdoodle and a big glass of milk, we read a book about killer whales, and after we turned out the lights so that he could sleep, he asked questions and I answered through the door way for another hour. He likes to bring up the deep things at the end of the day, like “why do you love me, are sure I had dessert, will you always love me, why do you leave me, who do you think is the best, you or Dad and why did you put the little chick tatoo on wrong so that it didn’t work; that one was my favorite tattoo. I loved that tatoo.”