Thom wants The Heartbreak Kid.

Clearly, he was upset about something but his film was a 15 certificate, so we had no chance of that. The air conditioning was sucking the life from me but a vigorous, if selfish, intercourse with Helen in the afternoon had steadied me for the day, so, unable to make a case for preferring Extinction, I tried to think of ways I could smuggle Thom into The Heartbreak Kid. There were three cashiers and so, choosing the one with least self esteem, we entered the queue. I was concerned about Thom's reticence. His choice of film was a way of expressing his upset, yet I was aware of my own reluctance to hear the cause, for Thom and I share a fear, and I smelt it now, a fear that reaches to the depth of our own, or the other's, soul. What if Mummy's met another man? And so it was we reached the front of the queue and I reached for my wallet, stopping quickly, as if remembering to introduce a figure of high royalty. This is my son, I said, conveying an air of sadness and piety, of growth disease, of long nights toiling over the latest clinical trials. Before giving her time to speak, I held her gaze and silently intoned, from my solar plexus and through my eyes into hers and into the shallows of her self esteem, I intoned this message: You are pretty! Something subterranean had been conveyed, for she blushed, and what is that if not introjected delight? We got our tickets, and no question asked. We saw our film. I may not have eased, or even heard Thom's suffering, but I was still his hero and we tucked into popcorn like kings.