“I like broccoli.”
“Most children hate broccoli.”
“I’m not most children.”
“I’m beginning to understand that.”
He waited.
Denise tried again.
“Mushrooms?”
“No.”
“Olives?”
“No.”
“Tomatoes?”
“Yes.”
His eyes brightened.
Denise brightened too.
“Really?”
“Cooked tomatoes. Raw are acceptable.”
“That seems like an important distinction.”
“It is.”
She pointed her spoon at him.
“I’ll remember.”
“Question three. What am I afraid of?”
Denise stopped.
This one she did not guess.
“I don’t know.”
Ethan looked at me.
I knew.
Silence.
Not quiet.
Silence.
There was a difference.
When Ethan was four, a storm knocked out the electricity overnight. He woke in darkness so complete he could not hear the refrigerator hum or the fan beside his bed.
He had screamed for me.
For years afterward, we kept a small white-noise machine running near his door.
By eight, he no longer needed it.
Mostly.
I waited to see whether he would tell Denise.
