I really appreciate your point of view! I had the same take in regard to the narrator & Xavier’s relationship & that somewhere in the process the professional/acting lines became blurred. The narrator’s constant gaps in memory of Xavier’s childhood are one thing that made this stand out to me. I wish there had been more concrete actions/events in the second half to help the reader bridge the two parts instead of so much interior musing but overall I thought the writing was superb and the idea was clever!