During the first few months, I was terrified almost every night.
Whenever Jake slept longer than usual, I would walk over to his crib and check whether he was still breathing.
Whenever he developed a fever, I thought the day the doctors had warned me about had finally arrived.
But Jake kept living.
He turned one.
Then two.
Then three.
His body changed much faster than other children’s bodies did.
The wrinkles on his face became deeper.
His hair remained extremely thin.
He was small for his age and became tired quickly.
But he had the most curious eyes I had ever seen.
By the time he was five, he could spend hours asking me questions.
Why is the sky blue?
Why do people grow old?
Why do people feel sad when they lose someone?
Then one day, he asked the question I had feared most.
“Mom, why do I look older than you?”
I sat beside him.
“Because your body works a little differently.”
“Am I sick?”
I couldn’t lie to him.
“Yes.”
He was silent for a few seconds.
“But I’m still going to school tomorrow, right?”
I laughed and hugged him.
“Of course.”
School, however, was one place where I couldn’t always protect him.
During his very first year, several children started calling him “Grandpa.”
Some laughed at the way he walked.
Others secretly took pictures of him from across the schoolyard.
At first, Jake pretended he didn’t notice.
He would come home, put his backpack on a chair, and say,
“It was a good day.”
But I knew when he was lying.
On good days, he talked endlessly.
On bad days, he was silent.
When Jake was eleven, he came home one evening and went straight to his room.
I followed him.
“Jake.”
“I’m fine.”
“I know you’re not.”
He was sitting on the edge of his bed.
For a long time, he wouldn’t look at me.
Then he asked,
“If I had a normal face, would Dad have stayed?”
That question hurt more than anything I had heard in all those years.
I sat beside him.
“Your father left because of his own fears. Not because of your face.”
Jake lowered his head.
“But if I hadn’t been born like this, he wouldn’t have been afraid.”
I didn’t know what to say.
That evening, for the first time, Jake opened an old blue notebook I had given him months earlier.
