It described their difficulty, not the child’s character.

“I’d still like to meet him,” I said, more firmly than I had said anything in three years.

Chapter 8 — I Am Forty-Seven, Not Ninety

Gail nodded and let me walk over to his corner by myself.

Silas glanced up from his paperback as I approached, taking my measure in a single quick, practiced look — the look of a child who has learned to read adults fast, because reading them wrong has consequences.

Then he gestured, politely, to the empty chair beside him.