When Kevin's mother was angry with him—which was often—she would scream at him in German. Kevin would stand stock-still, uncomprehending, as a glottal flurry of words roared past him.
Afterward, he would run from his family's rickety cottage to the used-up gravel pit where we local children would loiter in the dusk. He would entertain us by swallowing round stones of various colours and sizes, much to our astonishment and delight.
When he was a teenager, he was arrested for setting fields of wizened corn on fire. More than once. And for shoplifting from the ancient, many-times-painted tuck shop down by the beach. He would be returned to the rickety cottage, squirming and smirking in the back seat of a shiny blue squad car.
The damaged Prodigal Son.
And for his entire life, Kevin would never come to understand a single word of German.