“You sure those gloves aren’t making you miserable?” I asked in the parking lot, loading the truck.
He gave me the same little smile. “My hands are sensitive.”
“In June?”
He shrugged. “They get cold.”
There it was again. Smooth. Ready. Something he had said often enough that the answer no longer belonged to a real conversation.
That night, after he went upstairs, Lila stood at the sink drying dishes and said what I had been trying not to say out loud.
“Something is wrong with that boy
I stared out the dark kitchen window at the faint glow of the patio light. “I know.”
“Do you think it’s medical?”
“I think it’s fear,” I said. “I just don’t know fear of what.”
Nate was my sister’s son. After she died, his life turned into a chain of temporary arrangements, shuffled plans, and adults using the word fine like a curtain they could pull shut. His father had never been steady. There was always a reason, always a complication, always somebody else making decisions for him. The last year had mostly been spent with his father and stepmother out of state, though I’d had to work harder than I should have just to pin down addresses and dates. Whenever I called, I got the same answer: Nate was quiet, but fine.
Fine kids didn’t sleep with their bedroom door locked in a safe house.
Fine kids didn’t jerk when someone reached across a table too quickly.
Fine kids didn’t act terrified of touching the world.
Over the next two weeks, little things began stacking themselves into something ugly. Nate would not touch the refrigerator handle directly. He used the hem of his shirt or a dish towel. He wouldn’t open jars without wrapping them first. When Lila asked him to move clean laundry from the dryer to the basket, he froze for a beat too long before doing it. One afternoon, the dog nudged his hand and Nate recoiled so sharply that the kitchen chair scraped hard against the floor. He apologized instantly, eyes wide, breath coming too fast, and then vanished into the downstairs bathroom for nearly ten minutes.
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