Hal’s confession to Mario (pp. 784–785)

Hal names the family religion to its face and refuses to let it replicate. Mario keeps meeting the confession with bottomless, unhurt acceptance, and Hal, exasperated, calls it what it is — "a Moms-act of total trust and forgiveness" — the maternal performance of unconditional grace, now being reproduced by the youngest son. "One liar's enough": Hal counts the total-trust act itself as a lie, puts himself down as the household's one confirmed liar, and begs Mario not to become the second by performing the very forgiveness-machine Avril runs. It's the anthology's sharpest moment of a child seeing the system as a system and trying, out loud, to break the transmission — telling his brother he's allowed to be hurt, allowed to be angry, allowed, for once, not to be the Moms.