I finally figured out what my son liked to eat. I tried chocolate milk first, his favorite. I didn’t know where to pour it. I had to guess at where the mouth ought to be in relation to the one eye that had already formed, that jellied protuberance with its blue-ringed pupil rolling aimlessly like a marble. It had been the first body part to develop after his head had sprouted through the dirt. The first thing that made him him.

I wanted so badly for that eye to stop roving, to look at me, to see me, even once, instead of continuing its aimless journey. I didn’t despair. I dabbled milk around his conical head like the attentive father I meant to be, the one that could have prevented the accident. I whispered words of encouragement, but the milk rolled off him and pooled on the soil.

He grew, albeit slowly. Doubt gnawed at me. I worried if he was getting enough. I stopped going to work, afraid to leave his side ever again. My wife never came down to check on me, suspected I was snockered. Our wordless encounters in the kitchen were proof of life enough that she didn’t wade through her grief to find me, and I was selfish enough to stay away.

Once, with his yellowed stalk listing, head perched like a hat, I had a realization: I had to stop thinking in human terms. It pained me, but I needed to acknowledge what he was. I ignored the worried looks and whispers from onlookers as I studied fungal feeding habits at the library. It was obvious; the answer had been there since that night I brought home dirt from his gravesite. Before he grew from it.

I poured a blended meat puree onto him and watched the forceful way it was sucked into his soil as if he were slurping spaghetti. He hit a growth spurt. His stalk thickened, developed a hearty sheen. Nubs sprouted at his sides, reaching. Lips formed from heaped spongy red tissue, like worms tussling under the surface. They never revealed a mouth, but my chest sucked inward every time I saw them, how they curled up, wrestled into a semblance of a smile. His smile.

I didn’t stop my wife when she left us. He was almost ready to show the world, and if she couldn’t see it, was too horrified to love him again, then good riddance. By now, he could survive out of the soil for a few minutes at a time. His legs were getting stronger, his bumbling steps surer. If I positioned myself right, he could stumble into my arms and I imagined the way we used to play, his laughs filling up space as we spun, smiling with his eyes closed to the sun.