I mistook the strain for strength.

They can look remarkably alike from the outside, especially when you are tired, and grieving, and want so badly to believe that your child is all right.

“I’m going to buy the bike myself,” he told me, and there was a pride in his voice, a straightening of his small shoulders, that I loved and ached over in equal measure.

“You know you don’t have to do that,” I said.