“Are those dots popcorn?”
Owen examined it.
“Definitely popcorn.”
He put the picture on our refrigerator beside the first one.
Sometimes, late at night, Owen talks about the woman who saw him in that parking lot when he was nine.
For years, he hated her for looking away.
Now he sees it differently.
“Maybe she was scared,” he told me recently.
“Maybe she thought getting
involved would make things worse.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“I wish someone had shown her that it didn’t have to become a fight.”
I reached for his hand.
“You showed Ethan.”
Owen nodded.
“Yeah.”
Then he fell asleep.
I stayed awake a little longer.
Thinking about a nine-year-old boy in a Spider-Man shirt who made too much noise because he desperately wanted someone to notice him.
