Sharp
“Could you die in a car accident, dad?” he asked. I told him I could but that I really hoped I wouldn’t.
“Like if you couldn’t stop the car and you crashed, would you die?” I told him that was a possibility, but that he shouldn’t think of such things and it was time to turn off the TV and go to bed.
An hour after putting him down, I heard him calling for me down the hall. I walked in and he had the light on and was sitting up in bed. He asked me which car I was going to drive to work tomorrow. I told him the gray one, just like always. He nodded. I turned off the light.
Two hours later I woke to hear him walking down the stairs. I got up and turned on the light to see him opening the front door. In his other hand he had a pair of pliers and the wire cutters he had seen me use to make a screen for his grasshopper house. He looked at me, sheepishly.
What are you doing, son? I asked him.
“Nothing,” he sighed, looking past me into the kitchen as he put down the tools and closed the door. “Can I have a snack?”
