It was the first gift my son had given me that I felt came from a genuine place. One that suggested he had thought about my feelings at all.

I knew he would have liked to be anywhere but in the room when I opened it. I would have preferred that as well. If it weren’t for the rest of his family, the rest of mine, we would have done ourselves a favour. But he had missed his opportunity to drop it off without even my realization and if I left this room holding it, people would know.

We had tried to make this less of a spectacle than everyone else appeared to feel it was.

I drifted my fingers across the book’s surface. Yes, he had to have spent as long deciding on this as I had spent deciding on his gift.

“Thank you.”

He rubbed the back of his head, not looking anywhere near me. That was fine, I’d struggled to look in his direction in the first place. This made it easier. “Ah, it was nothing.”

Another gap bridged.