***

I am home for the weekend.  I have been living every second with the boys.  Liam doesn’t sleep well.  I am tired.

Liam goes down for  a nap.  Jack is still awake, playing all by himself in the front room.  I lie on the couch.  I am mostly asleep in seconds.  Soon I feel a gentle touch.  I open my eyes.  Jack is there, very close.  He gives me a look.  It is a very adult look.  I am drowsy, perhaps that is it, but I see his grown-up man face for a second as he looks at me with affection.  He tucks his stinky, old, disgusting, beyond-beloved bear into my arms.  He smooths my hair.  I close my eyes.  I clutch the stinky old thing to my chest.  I love him so.  The boy.  The bear that holds onto the boy, that will hold the Boy forever, even when Jack is a man.

He shared it with me.

My heart swells.  Overflows.