Charming Boy

Charming Boy is the name I'm using for Helen's son. He was at the memorial this weekend, looking very, very much like her, as we all saw in her films because Helen had included footage from her own childhood in some of them.

I was struck by how he seemed to be protecting himself, evaluating the grownups around him with care. All these grownups, talking about his mama! Z. is a few months younger than Charming Boy--in fact, she is now the age he was when he woke up in the dark of the early morning because his dada scooped him up to go and investigate why his mama was crying out "Please don't hurt my baby!"

This is the same plea I made in the three words ("Oh, God, Z.!") that tore out of me while I watched Z. flying, crown-first, through the air to the concrete sidewalk last September. I was talking to god. Helen was talking to a man with a gun, but maybe god was listening because the only one of them not shot that morning was Charming Boy.

Thank god, all Z. suffered was a broken arm. But she regressed on every front; she played the game of putting a pretend cast on her arm until she could no longer fit an empty toilet paper roll over her hand; she is only now becoming confident of herself in space. I see 18 month-olds doing more adventurous climbing than she does at 27 months and I know this is not just her native caution. The world of stairs and high places has looked very dangerous to her for a long time.

Charming Boy's arm didn't break, his heart did. And so did his daddy's. There is no mama to nurse him better. Seeing him this weekend, seeing how he loves to run and play and climb, but keeps his words and his spirit hugged close to himself, I could hardly let myself think of how the world of grownup people must look to him.