I had gotten so used to it, so gradually, that I had almost stopped seeing it as strange.

And when it lifted, when the weight came off him all at once, I saw by contrast exactly how much of it there had been, how long my son had been standing at attention, how far he had been from the loose, careless, unburdened ease that is a child’s birthright.

He looked, in that moment, younger than he had in years, and it broke my heart and mended it at the same time, because a boy is not supposed to have to be given his childhood back.

He is supposed to simply have it.