He got in the car without looking at me. The trembling hands. His half-open sweatshirt, as if he had run out of class.
I tried to relax the atmosphere and joked, “Have you fought? Have you stopped an exam?” He just murmured, “It’s not me… it’s her.”
That’s how I found out. The baby was no longer his girlfriend’s. She had just left the hospital. Without signing the papers discharge. And Zach? My still teenage son, addicted to video games, uncomfortable in society, still not very slapped with the razor blade… He signed.
That same night, she looked me straight in the eye and said, “If no one loves her, I love her.” I thought it was a joke. Zach was 15 years old. He had a hard time remembering to charge his phone or take out the trash.
But he was serious. Very serious. “I don’t know what to do, Mom… but I can’t leave her. I’m the only one who wants to take care of her. I don’t want her to grow up alone.”
And then I understood: it was not a whim. It was a decision. Of those that are taken as adults. And I was willing to go all the way.
The next few days were blurred. We put ourselves in social assistance service. They explained to us, with great caution, that Zach could not with all that alone.
