I. A woman sharpens a knife along the bottom of a mug, then pares away the hard brown root beneath an onion. She thinks of when her son first began to toddle and discovered the kitchen. He opened cabinets, banged pots and pans, and played in the basket of alliums. The woman sighs regretfully. Her son had gripped an onion with dimpled hands and handed it to her, then tried to stack one on top of another. He made a mess, scattering shards of onion skin over the kitchen floor.