Thom wants a skateboard.

I sensed a slight misgiving from his mother and yet, as Thom was such a sedentary, literate boy, I was eager to endorse anything that increased his velocity. The concern of his mother, of course, served only to fuel my enthusiasm. And so it was we spent the morning, all three of us, in another overlit emporium. A place where people, humans, seek out and solve their need for plastic. Indeed, it was unprecedented. We had not been together in public, the three of us, since the divorce. And every minute Thom's fearful diplomacy made me wince. However, on seeing his mother as pained as me, I relaxed.

I was aware of thinking and, on occasion, fantasising about ex yet the reason for inviting or, perhaps, intimidating her into joining us today remained, for now, elusive. Of course, I was aware of a slow burning desire to see her naked body again. She does have the most beautiful, yet entirely normal, legs and upper thighs. I suspect it's very common, yet it always felt extremely rare. I was also aware of wanting to play a more authoritative, symbolic role in Thom's life. Our weekend escapades sometimes have the air of, exactly that, escapades. And so in buying the skateboard in the presence of his mother I was, perhaps, initiating Thom into the first stage of manhood. Or increased momentum, anyway. I do know how pitiful this sounds.

The third motive in inviting Thom's mother was at the border of my awareness in the asking, this morning. It would be better if you came, I said. I had no idea why death and foreboding, personal, perhaps even environmental, had suddenly entered my voice. And yet it occurred to me then, at the cashtill, paying for the Harmony skateboard, that I didn't want to stagger round my father's deathbed alone. Perhaps I wanted help, her help. Of course all motives will, finally, coalesce toward sex and death so none of this concerned me.

It had been friendly, sometimes tense. However, as we parted she turned on me, saying, was it really necessary for me to come? It was a quiet thrill to know that she, too, had indulged the ambiguity of the situation. To prolong the mystery, for her and, perhaps, myself, I simply said, Yes. But again the foreboding entered my voice and I sounded frightened, ghastly. And so I took to my bed with a quarter pipe, no desire in the mind or groin, and returned to the question of my motives. As I drifted off, beyond the call of sex and death, it was the second motive, the new paternal role I was fashioning, it was this, till sleep, I tried to sustain.