My 8-year-old son secretly skipped school lunches to buy our neighbor’s daughter a red birthday dress. I thought his biggest problem would be explaining himself to me. The next morning, dozens of lunchboxes covered our lawn. Noah opened the biggest one, backed away, and told me to call the cops.
The first time Noah saw the red dress, he stopped so suddenly that I nearly walked straight into him.
“Mom.”
The next morning, dozens of lunchboxes covered our lawn.
I followed his finger to a tiny red dress in the store window, with a full skirt and a bow at the waist.
“Lucy needs that.”
I looked at him. “Needs?”
Noah considered the word.
“Okay. Wants.”
I laughed. “She hasn’t even seen it.”
“She’d like it, Mom.”
I followed his finger to a tiny red dress in the store window
“How do you know?”
He gave me the patient look children reserve for adults who have somehow failed to understand something obvious.
“Because she’d look like a princess.”
***
Lucy lived next door with her mother, Hannah.
“Because she’d look like a princess.”
She was almost two, had Down syndrome, and had adored Noah for as long as she was old enough to recognize him coming through the gate.
He brought her dandelions, drew terrible dogs for her, and made ridiculous noises just to hear her laugh.
She was almost two, had Down syndrome.
Hannah had been raising her alone since she was a baby, and most months were tight.
A few weeks before Lucy’s second birthday, Hannah and I were drinking coffee while Lucy stacked plastic cups on the patio.
Hannah had been raising her alone since she was a baby, and most months were tight.
“I’m not really doing a party this year,” Hannah admitted. “Cake at home. Maybe balloons. We’ve had extra appointments lately. Everything costs something.”
When Noah later asked me why Lucy wasn’t having a “real birthday,” I gave him the simplest version.
