The next night all the children of the neighborhood donned masks. It was that night when a parent’s sins might be hidden by the visage of some ostensibly greater horror, and that in the name of fun, rewarded with sweets. What a trick we play upon our offspring every autumn.

This might have proved the one night Felix could go unnoticed, be nothing more than a boy, but he had no mask to wear to hide the face I had inflicted upon his unspoiled skin. The doorbell rang, and I answered it, Felix held in my arms. The child at the door wore a grinning, plastic skull, and said, You’re that crazy man. Do you have any candy?

Maybe I did, I told him, but I would want his mask in return. My son needed the mask more than he did. The boy said that it was his mask, and he needed it to get candy, and if I didn’t have any I should just say so, and he would leave.

Don’t, I said, please, look, and I held out Felix for the boy to see. My son needs a mask so he can be like any other boy, like you, if only for tonight.

The boy ran, ran away into the street, into the trickle of witches and princesses and knights and demons carrying pillow cases and buckets. I followed him, holding Felix before me, the other children shying away from me even as I entreated them, Please, please he just needs a mask, and then he might be like any one of you, and you would not know that you were not like him. All that separates you is a few strokes of a knife, and that is no great thing, and so easily hidden, at least on this night, of all nights.

They fled, those children, and left us alone, and I thought Felix might be angry with me, or embarrassed, but he remained still, and silent.