Beautiful Boy -

“Hey, Liam,” I said.

One Saturday, when I was thirteen, my mother asked me to watch him for an hour. “Just an hour,” she said, already reaching for her coat. “He’s having a good day. He’s in the backyard.”

I put my hand in his. His grip was warm, surprisingly strong, and perfectly still. We stayed like that for the rest of the hour. My mother found us that way when she came home—two kids on the grass, hands clasped over the divide, saying nothing at all.

We sat in silence for a long time. A bee bumbled between the clover. Somewhere a dog barked twice and then gave up. I pulled blades of grass and let them fall, one by one.

Open. Waiting.

“Beautiful boy,” she whispered from the back door, and I couldn’t tell which of us she meant. Maybe both.