“I know.”

“I also want to hug him until he turns thirty.”

“I know that too.”

We sat on a bench beneath the awning.

I thought of the last two months: Toby leaving every Friday with a cheerful wave, my answering without even looking up from work, and the Sunday evenings when he came home pale and tired.

How easy it had been to call every change ordinary adolescence.

“I should’ve noticed,” I said.