Snippet: Silkysoft

I gave him a teddy bear, soft as a chinchilla’s hair, for his birthday; he was three. “Do you like it?” “It’s a toy for babies.” “But do you like it?” “Yes,” he said. “It’s silkysoft.” I can’t say what I hoped to find; his father’s love affairs sprang to mind. It was a Blackmail Bear, with silkysoft hair. My younger son carried it everywhere.

But it wasn’t his father in the deep beetle eyes of the silkysoft I saw.