My son asked if I wanted him to make me tea

Dear Delyara, He’s seventeen, usually hungry, usually in a hurry, usually halfway between boyhood and leaving. I had just come home from work and was taking my shoes off in the hallway when he looked at my face and said, “You look wrecked. Want tea?” That sentence nearly undid me. Not because I needed tea that badly. Because I needed to be seen before I had become obviously unwell. Because I needed some evidence that all these years of care move both ways sometimes. Because motherhood can feel like pouring and pouring and hoping the cup remembers your name when it grows hands of its own. He made the tea too strong, exactly as I do.