The Maui fires. The conversation you can't leave for later.

I had about two seconds to decide what kind of answer to give. The reassuring answer, which would have been partially dishonest. The honest answer, which risked being overwhelming. Or something in between — which is usually where the true answer lives.

I said: parts of it are burning right now, and that's real and it's serious. Other parts of it are more protected than they were twenty years ago. Both things are true at the same time.

He considered this. Then: 'Which thing is bigger?'

I said: I don't know. Nobody knows for certain. The people working on the bigger thing believe they're making progress. The people watching the burning parts aren't sure the progress is fast enough.

He nodded slowly. The nod of someone who has received information that is genuinely uncertain and is trying to hold it without resolving it.

Both things are happening. That's the true and correct answer. Both things are happening at the same time, in ways that are not easy to hold simultaneously, and my son's nod — the nod of someone trying to hold uncertain information without resolving it — was, I think, the right response. More honest than resolution. That is also an answer.