The Afternoon Everything Quietly Began to Change
For illustration purposes only
For nearly a month, my son Mason had stopped being the loud, restless boy who used to fill every corner of our house with the chaotic joy that only a ten-year-old could produce. Before that quiet stretch settled over our home, Mason had seemed to carry the energy of several children at once—racing down hallways with a rubber ball that bounced off every wall, constructing elaborate cardboard fortresses in the garage, and asking an endless stream of questions about planets, dinosaurs, and places he promised he would visit someday.
Our home, in a quiet neighborhood outside Madison, Wisconsin, had always echoed with his voice, moving faster than I could follow. Though I sometimes joked that he possessed more energy than the entire school soccer team combined, I secretly loved the noise—it made the house feel alive in a way silence never could.
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