My son died of a fever. It came on him one night between Milan and Hippo Regius, and by morning he was gone. "God has called him home," Augustine wrote to me, but I don’t know what that means. Does it mean that every one of us still alive is less loved? Is this one of those Christian riddles, that the priests teach and the old women who see clearly do not understand, that God’s love can be equal for us all and yet at the same time so great for Adeodatus that the King of Kings must have him back before I could embrace him again? Augustine says this is an example of my selfishness, and perhaps it is. But if I am selfish, then what is God, that is everywhere and in everything, that is eternal, yet He couldn’t wait another month for my son? He, God, is in me, and my arms could have wrapped the boy, and that surely would have been likewise God welcoming him home. Is there even a word for the perfection of selfishness to an elixir that the whole universe must drink, and call it love?