He accepts my answer. When it comes to his dad, he always does.
“I wish I could ask him.”
“I wish you could, too.”
He goes back to coloring. I take a long, deep breath to keep my arm from trembling.
“Green for the leaves?” he asks after a quiet minute. “Or orange?”
“I think green. It’s still summer, isn’t it?”
The grown-up way he says that makes me laugh. He gets it from the cartoons he watches—new phrases, new sayings, everyday. I love that for him. I love seeing him grow, even in little ways like this one.
Soon, if Yulian’s advance comes through, he’ll be getting his new words from friends at school.
I watch him finish his masterpiece. He’s added little clouds in white highlighter pencil, and used lipstick to paint butterflies.Once, these scars were a symbol of my pain. Now, they
