My Son Started Packing My Barbecue Into Takeout Boxes

when you want to gather your child up, even when he’s too old and too wrong and too far gone for gathering. I wanted to. God help me, I wanted to.

Instead I folded the dish towel in my lap.

“What are you going to do about it?”

He looked at me then.

Not at Ashley.

Not at the floor.

At me.

And for the first time in a long while, he looked awake.

He didn’t answer continue reading …