Tender is the Flesh

A memory strikes him of his sister's phone calls when Leo died. She only spoke to Cecilia, as though his wife were the only one who needed to be consoled. At the funeral, crying, she held on to her children as though she feared they too would die a sudden death, as though the baby in the casket had the ability to infect others with its fate. He looked at everyone as though the world had distanced itself a few meters; it was as though the people embracing him were behind frosted glass. He wasn't able to cry, not once, not even when he saw the small white coffin being lowered into the ground. What he was thinking was that he wished the coffin were less conspicuous; he knew it was white because of the purity of the child inside, but are we really that pure when we arrive in this world? he wondered. He thought of other lives, thought that maybe in another dimension, on another planet, in another era, he might find himself with his son and watch him grow. And while he was thinking about all this and people were throwing roses onto the coffin, his sister cried as though this child were her own.

Lunch with his sister always puts him on edge. Not to such an extent that he stops going, but he feels the need to collect himself afterward, in order to understand why this person who's part of his family is the way she is, why she has the children she does, why she's never cared about him or their father

Parents who name their children after themselves are stripping them of an identity, reminding them who they belong to.