Byron Y. Adams has gotten us intimately into the head of his main character, William, partner in a law firm. Opening the story in a men’s room where the elderly William notes that a young associate seems to always be in there at the same time, Adams exposes William’s prostrate problems that cause him many bathroom trips and the embarrassment of age.
Adams brilliantly uses William’s condition as the impetus for the conflicts (and understandably, tension) as he both faces and tries to hold off retirement and decisions regarding his relationship with his life partner, Tom. There is a poignancy to this story that brings us along with William on something that we all must grapple with some day, and brought to us in an unusually mundane–base if not for the exquisite handling by Adams–and universally human need.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology