November 15. Back across the Atlantic. I am such a beginner when it comes to feelings.

November 14. The conversations with my son explode. Milliseconds and insurance.

November 13. Soccer practice from nine to ten. Later My Little Pony, New Generation. Rode the streetcar across town to eat at Pinchos. Cut a window and door into the big cardboard box I brought the Paw Patrol plastic tower in. At bedtime, talked at length about generational spaceships and the Fermi paradox.

I seriously wonder how long and to what extent I will be needed here. Because it can hardly be more than needed-to-prevent-the-worst. My feelings for my children are exposed for what they are: biological protective mechanisms that are now running on empty. How much father do you need? What is there beyond it that wouldn’t amount to sentimentality?

The neighborhood is frighteningly quiet. All the houses have three floors, in all of them there is a narrow spiral staircase whose landings have lockable doors. There are no curtains anywhere in the large windows. All cars drive at walking speed, all restaurants are pizzerias.

November 12, Gothenburg. It is unclear what my children think. They don’t tell me directly.

November 11. Learning the unfamiliar art of not moving an inch from the spot. I liked the moment when my lawyer became a hyena in a split second.

Flying to Sweden tonight. The woman at check-in, as my destination and itinerary appear on her screen, takes a sheet printed on both sides with a table and studies it for a long time to find out what regulations apply to me today. A vaccination certificate is enough, and besides, as of a few days ago, a U.S. vaccination certificate is also accepted. A test, on the other hand, which I took for safety’s sake before leaving home, is no longer necessary.

November 10. Court hearing. It’s all on video. One window shows the judge’s chair, which remains empty because she has a scheduling conflict. A woman in another window conducts the hearing. Another window shows the clock with the big red LED digits in the courtroom; there is a horizontal line on all its positions. A virtual hearing like this is pleasant because you don’t have to fight your way on the Subway to an unfamiliar part of town, run through the streets panting and sweating, go through the firearms detector, then wait in the tiled waiting room with the uncomfortable wooden benches until ten minutes before the hearing the lawyers strike the deal. You don’t have to be called out by stern out-callers, and you don’t have to raise your right hand and swear that you are who you say you are.

November 9. To feel my children moving away from me now. I can do whatever I want, I can’t catch up with that distance. It’s not just different, it’s less. It won’t be that we just see each other a little less often, and then while we see each other, it would be like always.

November 8. Ran while the clear sky became deep red and deep blue. Some trees, in the grotesque light of the street lamps, with the bright undersides of their withered leaves, look as if they are just in bloom.

Walked down to buy a bottle of whiskey and turned back at the roadside.

November 7. Hedge cutting with chainsaw.

November 6. Drove aimlessly through the Hudson Valley, blue skies, looked at the fall colors. A chainsaw for J. In the evening, James Bond.