| s-1
| When Tyler was very young, his grandmother was his favorite person in the world because, unlike his parents, who believed that children should always be told the truth as adults understood it, she would fill in the gaps in his knowledge — Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, God. |
| s-2
| His parents were always too busy and often a little too serious, but his grandmother had a sense of peace about her, a lightness that lifted his spirit. |
| s-3
| A few times, when Tyler’s parents were away, she took him with her to church. |
| s-4
| He remembered liking the singing and the colorful windows, and how safe he felt there, in that large, empty space, sitting on a hard bench next to her warmth. |
| s-5
| When she died, grief overwhelmed Tyler. |
| s-6
| But like most adults, when he grew older he could only recall the intensity of that love in childhood in an abstract way. |
| s-7
| He made the common error of identifying maturity with worth, and assumed that the love he had for her as a young child must have been lacking in strength and depth. |
| s-8
| For many years after her death, however, Tyler was tortured by the memory of a certain visit from her. |
| s-9
| He was five or so, and they were playing some board game at the kitchen table. |
| s-10
| As he swung his legs in his excitement, he kicked her repeatedly in the shins. |
| s-11
| She asked him to stop, and he refused, giggling. |
| s-12
| When she finally frowned at him and threatened to stop playing if he didn’t stop he told her to go to Hell. |
| s-13
| In Tyler’s mind he could see her face grow taut, lose color, and then, for the only time he could remember, she began to cry. |
| s-14
| He also remembered his own utter confusion. |
| s-15
| His parents did not have much use for religion and so for him Hell was a word without much mystery or power. |
| s-16
| At that time he knew only vaguely that Hell was a place you did not want to go, like the dark basement or the even darker attic. |
| s-17
| He remembered feeling resentful that she was crying and he did not even understand why. |
| s-18
| Tyler felt the guilt of this memory even in his teenage years. |
| s-19
| For him it summed up all his insecurities and fears about his own cruelty, ignorance, and the possibility that he was, in reality, not a good person. |
| s-20
| The fact that he had caused someone who loved him such pain with so little effort and understanding troubled him deeply. |
| s-21
| One day Tyler looked through an old family photo album, and in it was a picture of the kitchen in the house they used to live in. |
| s-22
| He was surprised to discover that the small kitchen contained a central island, and had no space for the table in his memory at all. |
| s-23
| With the discovery of that single error in his memory came a cascade of other revelations. |
| s-24
| Now he remembered that they always ate in the dining room, and when they did play board games, it was always on the coffee table in the living room. |
| s-25
| The memory that had caused him such pain over the years could not possibly have occurred. |
| s-26
| Somehow, he must have manufactured the whole scene in his imagination. |
| s-27
| It was not very hard to explain what really happened, he thought. |
| s-28
| The death of his grandmother had probably caused in him feelings of abandonment and guilt. |
| s-29
| In his confusion he had taken elements from storybooks and imagined out of nothing this memory to punish himself. |
| s-30
| This was the sort of fantasy that could have occurred to any young child who lost an important relative. |
| s-31
| With that realization, the image of his grandmother crying faded in his memory and became less and less believable. |
| s-32
| Tyler thought he was very lucky to have discovered the single error in his false memory, which enabled him to reason his way into distinguishing between reality and fantasy. |
| s-33
| He felt that it was a coming-of-age moment. |
| s-34
| Nonetheless, he admitted to himself that he was a little sad also at the discovery. |
| s-35
| For however imaginary that memory was, it was also a part of his love for his grandmother. |
| s-36
| When that memory lost its compelling aura of truth, it was like another part of her died with it. |
| s-37
| He had no name for the emptiness that remained. |