Bewilderment

-

I FOUND HIM IN THE BACKYARD on a too-warm, late autumn day, drawing into a notebook as if his colored pencil were a scalpel. He jerked when my shadow fell across the grass in front of him, and he rushed the notebook shut. His stealth surprised me. He switched to his math problems worksheets—two-digit multiplication—and slipped the incriminating notebook under his folded legs as if it might disappear back into the grass and soil.

The last thing I wanted was to ransack his private thoughts again. But given the situation, it felt wise to have a look. I waited three days, until Robbie took an afternoon bike ride down to the railroad tracks to look for migrating monarchs on the last milkweeds. Then I combed through his bookcase and his bedroom’s prime hiding spots until I found the book. In between his field notes was a two-page splash of lines and colors. The painting looked like a child’s Kandinsky. It had that rush of modernist excitement shared by a generation of artists about to go up in flames. Underneath, he’d written, in a small, shaky hand: Remember what she feels like! You can remember!!!