parenting – Page 6 – Good Marching

by Kristen - July 25, 2014

Family Togetherness

George Burns once said that happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

In that case, my husband and I are ecstatic.

Andy has such a family, spanning multiple cities near and far. We all get together in July at an annual party my in-laws have hosted at their Michigan cottage for over three decades. This close-knit group takes family seriously, gathering for Independence Day whenever the circumstances of their lives permit.

I’ve been attending this party since 1998, that first summer when we were “Andy’s girlfriend and her eight-year-old daughter.” His family’s generous welcome swept Natalie into a tide of exuberant children as I was embraced by grown-ups thrilled that cousin Andy had finally found “the one.”

The party has been a focal point of my summer for years. Yet it’s been years since I felt truly whole at this model of family togetherness. It’s been years since Daniel has been with us.

***

Days of list-making and strategizing helped quell my apprehension as I prepared for those weekends, and the unpredictable outbursts that marked Daniel’s life, especially in an unfamiliar setting. No excursion was simple with my special little boy, least of all traveling three and a half hours for a long weekend away from home. I knew my son’s quirks and needs would likely trump my fantasy of a breezy weekend together. But those trips to Michigan were the only vacations we took back then, and we looked forward to them, particularly my husband, whose business keeps him busy from March through Labor Day. This is the only weekend he takes all summer to enjoy his parents’ cottage and see his extended family. It was an effort well worth making.

I never really relaxed on those trips, running after Daniel and monitoring his conduct, aware that his unusual behavior can be intrusive. It was exhausting, in fact, keeping him on track and occupied, his interests so often at odds with the agenda at hand, cut off from the stability of home and routine.

It was worth it to me, though. Of course it was. We were attending a family party, and Daniel was part of that family, too.

And Daniel loved the cottage, racing down the wooden steps to the long stretch of beach, smoother than the rockier shores on the Chicago side of the lake, free of disquieting, public crowds. He ran up and down the sand for hours, mesmerized by the pulse of waves across his feet, delighted by the splashes he made, again and again, tossing sticks and pebbles into the lapping water.

I didn’t mind chasing him when he strayed too far, bundling him in a towel and checking for sunburn; climbing the steps for bathroom breaks, cooling him with juice boxes and damp cloths to his forehead, then following him back to the beach for another round.

I didn’t begrudge Andy’s absence during those long afternoons, as he led the party’s golf tournament at the local course. He needed those unburdened hours, reconnecting with cousins he’s kept close since childhood. I got to know the beach-going contingent, through snatched conversations as I followed Daniel’s erratic motion up and down the shore. Supervising him was becoming a two-man operation, but I could still manage him by myself for an afternoon.

Until the inevitable breakdown, stoked by sun, sensory overload, and a boisterous, unstructured milieu. Daniel’s changes of mood, his wild, sudden tantrums, were nothing new, but more difficult to weather away from home. I’d hustle him to our bedroom and a soothing bath, lay quietly with him across the bed, stroking his back and singing softly against his ear until he finally settled and calmed.

By which time he was ready to leave all together, just as the evening of the all-day affair was getting underway. He’d pull me repeatedly to his travel bag, asking for home, or make his way down to the car when my back was turned, until at last I’d get him to sleep, and could rejoin the party for its few remaining hours.

***

I don’t remember making the decision to leave him behind, secure in the knowledge that he’d enjoy himself, as he always did, at his father and step-mother’s home. Perhaps I reminded myself that he would in fact be happier, no longer forced to endure an event which ultimately left him overwrought and overwhelmed. One year we simply conceded that the sprawling, festive party the rest of us enjoyed was not right for my son, however much I wanted it to be.

It was the right decision. I know this. The rest of us needed down time, freedom, for Andy to reinforce the relationships he’s maintained through his lifetime, for Natalie and I to find our places in the family we now called our own.

But the party was never the same, for me, without him.

And I understand now that the party was never the same with him, either, never matching the scenario I’d imagined, the nurturing, familial experience I wanted so badly to find in this occasion, for both my precious children. Autism had already shredded the screenplay I was still trying to direct; I was merely clinging to pages of an untenable script, unwilling to accept that my family could never enact the story my heart had written. This happy party scene had already been scrapped from the film of our lives together. I just wasn’t ready to let it go.

***

The parties are easier for me now. I can engage, and laugh, and converse, and, in recent years, help run the whole companionable show, unencumbered by my son’s needs and demands, my simmering worry that he’d turn miserable and unreachable in the midst of all the wonderful togetherness.

I still remember, though, the moments when he was happy there, lulled by the motion of waves and the warm sand beneath his feet. I remember his joy as he ran to toss another stick across the water, pleased with his accomplishment, twisting his fingers in front of his face as he does when he is happy. I wish those moments could have lasted, could have been enough to make the experience whole. But they are what we have, and I cherish their memory.

A few years ago I called to tell Daniel’s group home director that I wouldn’t be visiting that weekend because I’d be in Michigan for a family reunion. I described our earlier visits to the cottage, how we tried to make those weekends happen in spite of Daniel’s limitations.

“He loved it there, Sam,” I told him. “He loved the beach, if just for a little while.” My voice broke with unhealed regret. Daniel had been going through a rough patch in recent months, and I felt guilty that I wouldn’t be visiting. “I just can’t accept it, that he may never see that beach again.”

Sam was silent for a moment, then spoke with the quiet confidence that always reassured me.

“You’ll get him there, Kristen,” he told me gently. “It may take 15 years, but you’ll get him there again, someday.”

I’m holding on to that script for now.

There are still scenes of our lives yet to be written.

by Kristen - June 12, 2014

A Girl Like You

As a teenager my daughter claimed an aversion to alarm clocks. Although perfectly capable of getting up on her own, she maintained that the raucous jolt of an alarm set a negative tone for her whole day. She begged me to wake her personally.

Being a loving mother I obliged, devising a wake-up formula just for her.

She really would have fared better with an alarm clock.

Barging into her bedroom each morning, I’d launch into one of several inane monologues, which all shared a unifying theme.

“Girls like you,” I’d bellow, “you want to sleep late in the morning. But your moms won’t let you.” Or, “Girls like you, you think because you’re 16 you can get up when you want. Forget that!” And occasionally, “Girls like you, you wish your moms would go back where they came from. But they’re not gonna.”

Why I fastened on the phrase “girls like you” is a mystery hardly worth probing. Perhaps an old boyfriend’s frequent muttering of a song refrain that’s stuck in my head since the mid-eighties — “Girls like you always like my style” — was the genesis of the whole thing.

Whatever its source, the “girls like you” drill became entrenched, despite Natalie’s pleas for me to “Stop!” as she pulled the duvet over her head and rolled to face the wall.

For good measure I’d confirm that she wouldn’t go back to sleep when I returned downstairs. “Can I really trust you to get up?” (shortened over time to “Can you be trusted?”) I’d wait by the door for her aggrieved but unfailing response: “Yes! I can be trusted!”

Sounds silly, doesn’t it? Yet it is one of my fondest memories, a pattern woven into the fabric of our lives together, as my daughter grew from a child into the young woman she is now, ready to start the next chapter in her life.

A week from now she’ll receive a Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Northwestern University. My pride in her as one of the top students in her class is matched only by my certainty that she will make a positive mark on the world.

Do you remember those mornings, too, Natalie? Did you take comfort in a ritual that was ours alone? Sometimes I allow myself to believe that it was all a front, that your alarm clock phobia was simply a reason to feel me close as you began each day, bracing for whatever challenges adolescence threw your way, strengthened by the knowledge that I was in your corner.

I hope that was part of it, that you recognized that my love for you will transcend whatever unfolds, and you know that wherever life takes you now, I will always be behind you.

If only the act of waking you each morning could truly have shielded you, magically softened the experiences I never wanted you to know, the losses and heartbreak I’d give anything to have removed from your path. I wish your passage to adulthood had been gentler, untouched by divorce and the sudden deaths of friends, the loss of my parents when you hadn’t yet fully known them, the profound upheaval of the family your father and I had imagined for you before autism changed our lives.

If love was all it took, your life would have unfolded as effortlessly as I’d dreamed it would when you were a little girl, running barefoot down the sidewalk in a flowered dress on a summer evening, laughing with the unfettered delight that was uniquely yours. I wish I could have captured that moment for you, and made it last forever.

But that wasn’t necessary, after all, for you to become the remarkable young woman you are today. There is something magic in you that did the job on its own.

Do you remember when I started calling you my shining star? That’s all right; I can’t remember, either. It has simply always been so. You are the daughter every parent hopes for: smart and kind, engaging and beautiful and naturally, genuinely good. A leader who accepts responsibility even when you doubt your abilities, a friend who can be counted upon, a sibling to a boy who has been blessed beyond measure to have you in his corner.

Even as his disability altered your life so dramatically, as his needs so often eclipsed your own, you embraced him, loving him even when he didn’t express that love in return. You’ve never stopped trying to reach him, to convey your devotion in a way he will understand. And there is no doubt in my mind that he does understand. The strength of your love broke through.

You’re probably reading this and crying “Stop!” as you did all those mornings when I jarred you annoyingly from sleep. Don’t worry. I’m not claiming that you excelled at everything. Piano lessons, for example, come to mind.

What sets you apart is your willingness to try, to test yourself, your commitment to see things through without giving up. You’ve gone forward even when you felt like quitting, and have inspired me to do the same. You have forged the painful chapters of your life into something meaningful, something hopeful and positive and worthwhile.

Stop rolling your eyes; it’s not just your mom saying these things. Remember what your teachers have told you for the last two years: you are incredibly smart, gifted and compassionate; you have what it takes to be an excellent, effective therapist; and most important of all: you have a good soul.

Looking back now, I realize I had it wrong all those mornings with my “girls like you” routine. There is no one else in the world like you, beautiful Natalie. A girl like you is one of a kind.

My aim as your mother has always been to give you and Daniel what each of you needs, in spite of your vastly different abilities. I prayed that I would not let your brother’s disability cripple me, so that in turn I crippled you; that I would not hold you back through my own grief and self-doubt, that my longing to protect you as recompense for autism’s impact would not hinder your own confidence and initiative.

I don’t know if I succeeded. I pray you will forgive me for all I’ve done wrong. But it doesn’t really matter if I succeeded or not. Because you have.

Your success is demonstrated in the way you are living right now, as I write this, with details still uncertain, as you are waiting to see what lies just beyond your sight. And waiting for what is yet to be revealed is one of the hardest things in the world to endure.

But you are doing it, my beautiful girl. You keep moving forward, strong enough to confess your fears even as you take the next step, and the next after that. You remind me of your grandfather, who knew the only way through it is through it, who put one foot in front of the other until he reached where he aimed to go. He is smiling down on you now, sweet Natalie. He is so incredibly proud of you, as am I.

Each day I marvel anew at the woman you have become, standing on the threshold of independence and all the wonder the world has in store. I know you will never give up until you have found your true place, the place you are meant to be. And you will make that place better than it was before. This is one thing I know for sure.

You can be trusted.

by Kristen - May 30, 2014

A Good Bad Hair Day

I’d really like to stop caring about my hair. It’s been the bane of my existence for years, rarely turning out the way I want it to except when I have nothing more exciting planned than a trip to the hardware store.

But while I do spend a tedious portion of each day with my blow dryer, I’m no longer bothered if the results aren’t perfect. With age comes wisdom: my hair really won’t change my life, or even a moment of my day.

I wish I could adopt a similar attitude about my son’s hair. Despite of an array of more serious concerns — aggression, bolting, beverage stealing — I still care about appearances. His appearance, anyway.

Daniel’s disability overruled the reticence regarding children instilled in me for years by my mother. In her view, displaying pride in her children was a recipe for losing face, an invitation to all manner of embarrassing failure she’d rather avoid until she “saw how we turned out.” Not once do I recall her praising me to another person.

But autism granted me permission to claim one small advantage in my own child’s favor when the odds were otherwise stacked against him: He is physically attractive.

Were she still alive, my mother would be aghast. But I say it unabashed: My son is beautiful. He has that going for him.

His teachers adored him, cuddled him, and melted at his smile. They loved his hip, laid-back style in the trendy clothes I chose for him. Friends and strangers alike commented on his looks, perhaps able to summon nothing more substantive to say about a child whose eccentric behavior left them bewildered and tongue-tied.

I didn’t mind that their praise was superficial. If Daniel’s looks gave him even the slightest edge as he faced the world, I welcomed that edge. Playing up his physical appearance was one job I could manage successfully as the rest of our world spiraled out of control.

Letting go of that job six years ago was a loss I still experience. We’d come to accept that residential placement would someday be necessary, but didn’t expect his escalating behavior to force that outcome when he was still a teenager, when he was still, in my heart, my little boy.

I didn’t know then how achingly I would miss the tangible care of my son, the proximity to tend to details he’d otherwise neglect, the tender, intimate routines on which we’d built our relationship together.

I miss supervising his shower, scrubbing his back as water splashed my face and clothing, reminding him to keep rinsing until his hair was clean. I miss bundling him in a towel in the steamy bathroom, fussing over his complexion and combing his hair, trimming his nails as he sat fidgeting on the edge of his bed.

I miss washing his favorite pajamas every day so he’d never have to sleep without them, checking that his jeans weren’t too short and his dark T-shirts didn’t fade in the dryer.

I miss his shy, satisfied smile as he’d inspect his reflection in the salon mirror, brushing his fingers across his freshly trimmed hair.

I miss being close at hand, ensuring that my son is not dismissed by a world that sees only autism’s messy side-effects, making sure that he is treasured, and honored, and cared for.

And he is cared for. Well cared for, if not to the standards I once maintained so diligently. His adult family home is staffed by professionals who do their jobs well, taking care of my son as they are hired to do. They seem genuinely fond of Daniel, too. Despite his quirks and alarming behavior, he still charms nearly everyone he knows.

There was just the little problem of his hair.

Months after moving to his new group home Daniel’s hair still had not been trimmed. We offered to find a barber ourselves, but were assured by his home director that he’d take care of it. With so many other concerns vying for attention, it was easy to let a haircut slide.

Luckily for him, Daniel has his father’s hair, a glossy, medium brown, that on a typical 22-year-old would look fashionable curling so long around his neck and across his forehead, à la Josh Groban.

But Daniel isn’t typical. Instead of a studiously careless, tousled look, his hair was just tousled. Disheveled. A mess, really, even as staff tried their best to keep it at bay.

I don’t know why something so trivial came to bother me as it did. We’ve had plenty of more pressing challenges to contend with since his transition from residential school to adult family home.

But maybe that is the answer, right there. He is growing up, every day growing further from my care, from holding him close, tending to his needs on a regular, comforting basis. We’ve been traveling to adulthood for years, but I’m not ready yet to let him go.

Daniel’s hair had finally been cut the last time I visited him. It is a singularly awful haircut, his worst since my own attempts when he was three years old.

But that didn’t matter.

His caregiver couldn’t wait for me to see his new hairstyle, smiling as I cupped his face and stroked his forehead, visible again at last.

She was thrilled when I commented on his sparkling white henley, a welcome change from the worn-out, orange mesh garment that, for reasons known only to Daniel, he’s insisted for months on wearing whenever he knows I’m coming.

Eagerly she described how she’d coaxed him into wearing the new Nikes I’d bought him weeks ago, which he’d thus far refused to even try on.

She was beaming with pride at how handsome my son looked for his mother.

His haircut didn’t make a difference, after all.

But the woman caring for him did.

by Kristen - April 29, 2014August 20, 2014

Laugh at Your Own Risk

People say I tell a good story. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but raising a child with autism certainly provides a lot of material.

The story lately concerns Daniel’s obsession with beverages: his, mine, yours — anyone’s. Even the old lady’s at McDonald’s.

It began over a year ago with him snatching staff members’ sodas, at school and in his group home, and gulping them down as fast as possible.

Now any drink is fair game. His beverage swiping has increased so dramatically that we can no longer take him to restaurants or even Starbucks, where, along with his lemon cake, Daniel will help himself to the coffee, latte or Frappuccino of any hapless patron in his path.

The last time I took him inside a McDonald’s was nine months ago, during a Sunday lunchtime.

We finished eating, and Daniel took our trays to the trash as usual, then suddenly bolted toward a family seated a few yards away. Targeting the youngest child, a boy about six or seven, Daniel grabbed the cup from the kid’s hand and raised the straw to his mouth.

Horrified, I heard the boy’s father’s startled protest — “Hey, hey!” — as I struggled to retrieve the cup, which six-foot Daniel held high out of reach. He polished the drink off in seconds. Mission accomplished, he relinquished the cup as I grabbed him by the arm.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, turning to the stunned family behind me. “My son is autistic, and doesn’t always behave the way I’d like him to. I’ll get you another drink.”

The father, grasping the situation, told me not to worry, it was fine, no problem — all the kind, understanding words most people use when encountering the unusual behavior of a disabled person.

His compassion did little to soothe my own upset, though. Dragging Daniel by the arm, I returned to the counter. “I need another drink this size,” I told the clerk, holding up the boy’s cup and pulling two dollars from my wallet, keeping a grip on Daniel with the crook of my arm.

The clerk looked at me blankly, as though a soda had never before been ordered in the history of her McDonald’s employment.

“I need a drink this size,” I repeated urgently, holding the money across the counter. She just stared at me with her mouth open, finally pulling a fresh cup from the stack behind her, then shaking her head when I tried to pay. “I can’t take that,” she whispered, like I was offering her a bribe.

“Well, all right,” I replied, beyond caring whether I paid or not. I grabbed the cup and pulled Daniel back to the victimized family. The father tried to refuse the cup, but acquiesced when he saw my distress. Apologizing profusely, I hustled Daniel toward the door.

But the party wasn’t over quite yet.

Nearing the exit, Daniel abruptly wrenched free, darting to a table occupied by a tiny, white-haired woman in her nineties, and what appeared to be her daughter, herself at least 75. In a flash, he grabbed the older lady’s soda and bolted toward the bathrooms, guzzling the drink as he ran.

“He cannot be allowed to do that!” the daughter called stridently across the restaurant, over my own admonishments in Daniel’s direction. “He cannot be allowed to do that!”

Desperate now, I called to the woman as I rushed past, “I’m sorry, he has autism — ”

“Yes, I realize that,” she called after me. “But he cannot be allowed to get away with that!”

Neighboring customers cast wary glances our way as I snatched the now-empty cup from Daniel’s hand and turned back to his latest casualties.

“I’ll get you another drink,” I told the woman, “after I get him in the car.” Before she could respond I dragged Daniel out the door and into the backseat of my Jeep, rebuking him incoherently across the parking lot. “You stay right here, do you understand me?” I hit the lock on my key fob and ran back inside.

Still clutching the original two dollars, I approached the women’s table, where the daughter had, apparently, undergone a change of heart.

“It’s ok,” she said indulgently, waving off the money I offered. “It’s ok. It’s ok.”

But I’d passed my stress threshold by then.

“It’s not ok!” I cried, verging on hysteria. I tossed the money on the table in front of her. “It’s not ok! It’s never going to be ok, so please, stop saying that word!”

*****

Telling the story in the weeks to come, I was able to laugh along with my audience at the whole preposterous scenario. It was a relief to laugh about it, after the fact.

But that incident underscored how parenting this child, how living for years through these events, has shaped my attitude and behavior, just as autism shapes Daniel’s.

I was telling a family member about my ordeal a few days after it happened, still shaken, mourning my son’s ever-shrinking world, and the disability that had robbed us of sharing even a meal together at McDonald’s.

She was already chuckling as I reached the epilogue: driving from the restaurant, disgraced; me sobbing in hopeless futility while Daniel, already focused on his next request, asked repeatedly for Starbucks. I’m ashamed to admit how I screamed at him, again and again, as we drove back to his group home, another visit ruined by this hideous, inscrutable disorder, and my dismal collapse under its strain.

“It’s actually not that funny,” I said, annoyed by her failure to see the larger, more devastating picture. “This is a pretty big problem for us right now.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Kristen,” she told me, giggling. “But I just have to laugh at that one.”

I said nothing more. But that family member topped my shit list for months to come.

And that is my problem.

All my friends in the special-needs community have experienced these episodes, multiple times, surviving them only by recognizing and rolling with their absurdity. Better to laugh than to cry, right?

There are times when I can’t laugh, though, when the ramifications of Daniel’s behaviors outweigh their hilarity, when idiosyncrasies we once found quaint now impinge so dramatically on his chance to live even the semblance of a normal life.

But is it reasonable to expect those who aren’t living this to truly understand, to intuit the difference between a “funny” ordeal, and that one, final episode that breaks me? Do I have the right to dictate their reactions, when they are patient enough to listen at all, to commiserate with the difficult parts of my life that have no real bearing on their own?

This is my worry to struggle through, as best I can, while the rest of the world struggles through their own. Months of resentment later, I recognize that it is my problem, my failing, to ask those around me to view my experience through a lens that is mine alone.

I suppose it is better just to laugh.

But only when I say so.

by Kristen - April 14, 2014October 7, 2018

Relative Embarrassment

My daughter Natalie was on spring break a few weeks ago from her grad program at Northwestern, and my husband and I took her out to dinner to celebrate another semester of perfect grades.

Instead of dessert at the restaurant, she chose ice cream at our old stand-by, Baskin Robbins. Our visit would not have been complete without rehashing the episode of mortification which occurred on that very spot, circa 1999, so of course I obliged by reenacting the entire incident once more.

It’s a wonder I ever set foot in that place again. But what at the time seemed like the most excruciating event imaginable has become one of our family’s favorite and most repeated stories. It turns out everything really is relative, after all.

Before Daniel came along, I thought I was holding my own pretty well in the parental discipline department. Granted, with Natalie it was easy; she was a dream child, rarely causing scenes even within the privacy of our home, much less in view of a public audience.

It became a little more difficult with Daniel. As he grew from toddler to child, he found ways to express himself often at odds with convention. His inability to communicate through functional language, despite years of speech therapy, has long been a stumbling block in his progress. We recognize most of his basic “words”, but he is often frustrated by our failure to understand specifically his wants and needs. He’s learned that sometimes he just has to take what he wants.

Which brings us to Baskin Robbins on a dreary day off from school, with no structure or routine to deflect the crankiness of a child teetering on a really bad mood.

Natalie was playing with our neighbors’ girls across the street, and Daniel and I were struggling through a restless mid-afternoon. Unable to keep his attention on any activity for more than a few minutes, I had an inspiration. Abandoning my principle that a trip for ice cream should constitute a treat, I grabbed my back-arching and crabby son by the hand and we walked the few blocks to the ice cream parlor.

Despite the 31 flavors available to him, Daniel always chooses vanilla. Mollified, he sat still and worked methodically through his cone, after first chewing off the safety cup’s crunchy bottom, creating a dripping mess I wiped at in vain with a pile of napkins.

“Finished?” I asked brightly, when the last crumb had been consumed.

“Cone,” he replied, pointing to the glass case housing the vanilla bucket.

“Daniel, you just had a cone,” I said, wadding the napkins in my sticky fist.

“Cone,” he repeated. “Cone!”

“No, Daniel,” I said sternly. “Just one cone.” I stood and moved toward the wastebasket at the far end of the store.

Stuffing the napkins in the garbage, I turned to see Daniel bolting from his chair and darting past the glass case. I knew where this was going before comprehension had fully hit my brain.

“Daniel! Daniel! Daniel!” I cried, as he raced behind the counter, honing in on the vanilla like a heat-seeking missile.

“Daniel! Stop! Daniel! Stop!” I repeated desperately, running to catch up.

I had almost reached him when in one deft motion, his threw up the glass door, plunged his grimy hand into the vat of ice cream and shoved a handful into his mouth, swallowing with a defiant glare of triumph.

“Let me die now,” I thought, as the lone teenaged clerk turned from the appalled customer she was serving and found us in her workspace.

“I’m so sorry,” I began lamely, “but my son reached into the case here… ”

The clerk appraised me, sticky and frantic, and glanced down at my unrepentant son. “No problem,” she murmured. “It’s fine.”

“Well, he stuck his hand in the vanilla,” I continued wretchedly. “I’m so sorry. I’ll pay for it.”

Perhaps calculating the effort involved in fetching a new, five-gallon tub of vanilla from the storage freezer, the clerk shook her head. “Don’t worry about it.” She made a little waving motion with her hand. “Really. No problem.”

“Well… ok,” I mumbled. “Thank you so much. I’m so sorry.”

Seizing Daniel by the arm, I hurried out the back door, avoiding the dumbfounded gaze of our fellow customer.

“How could you do that, Daniel?” I hissed as we stumbled down the sidewalk toward home. “Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was? We’re going to have to leave town! You’re never getting ice cream again in your whole life!”

I paused to take a breath, and he stole a glance at me, his face open and benign.

“Cone?” he asked. He offered a tentative smile. “Cone.”

Oh, Daniel. I miss you.

I miss you.