The kitchen table had become my thinking place over the years, especially on quiet afternoons when Nathan was still at school, and the house felt still. I sat there with a cooling cup of coffee, staring at a chipped corner of the wood, thinking about my son the way mothers do when no one’s watching.
Nathan was 17, and he was, without question, the gentlest person I knew: quiet and shy. He read three books a week, fixed the neighbor’s printer for free, remembered birthdays, and wasn’t that into parties.
He read three books a week.
If you’d asked me what worried me most about my son, I wouldn’t have said his grades.
Teachers adored him. His report cards came back with little handwritten notes in the margins, things like “a pleasure to teach” and “thoughtful beyond his years.”
He’d always been one of the smartest kids in school.
But none of that protected him from the part of high school I couldn’t reach.