The girl watched the son drink, then took the tray away and went back in place again to comb. She yanked the son’s hair back so hard on his head his scalp strained red, exposed. The son’s scalp had tattoos all through it. The tattoos were of text fine-printed, writ by hand. The hair was held back by a series of small pins that pulled the hair’s roots so tightly they seemed ready to rip out any minute. In the mirror across the room the son could see himself aligned. He could see his room a little, his other room, in that old house. He felt the house inside him, in the mirror, its glass now leaning right against his face. This particular mirror, the son noticed, close up—among the many rooms refracted—this mirror was the same mirror as the one he’d slept with every night. This particular mirror was caving inward there against him, curving, becoming jelly, burble, white. In the mirror now, the son gleamed, of no expression.