It was the look of someone warning a witness not to speak.
My stomach turned before Eli reached the porch.
He used to run to me on Sundays.
He used to crash into my legs, drop his backpack in the entryway, and start talking so fast I had to laugh and tell him to breathe.
He would tell me what cereal he ate, what cartoon he watched, what dinosaur fact he remembered, what song got stuck in his head.
That was my boy.
He filled rooms.
For the last few months, he had been shrinking inside them.
First he stopped singing in the car.
Then his teacher sent home a note saying he had been chewing the skin around his fingers until they bled.
Then bedtime on Sunday turned into a negotiation no child should ever have to make.
“Please don’t make me go back tomorrow,” he would whisper.
