I did not rescue him this time.

That was the hardest thing I have ever not done, and I want to be honest that there were nights I lay awake wanting to, because the reflex to catch him had thirty-four years of practice behind it and did not switch off because I had learned better.

But I understood, now, what catching him had cost us both the first time.

I had caught him so completely, so invisibly, so unconditionally, that he had never had to feel the ground.