I hesitated.
At the booth, my husband David was laughing about something Mason had said. Mason carefully separated the chocolate frosting from the cake with the edge of his fork, something he had done since childhood. Hannah looked up.
Our eyes met.
The color drained from her face.
That was when I knew.
Whatever Diane was about to show me, Hannah knew exactly what it was.
I followed the waitress.
And for the first time in ten years, I stepped into the life my son had built when I wasn’t watching.
Mason had been different from the moment he entered the world.
Not broken.
Not less.
Different.
It took me years to understand the distinction.
When he was a baby, he could stare at the rotating ceiling fan for twenty minutes but cry hysterically if someone switched it off before the blades stopped in their usual pattern.
As a toddler, he lined toy cars along the windowsill by size and color.
