The Chocolate Dinosaur
The weeks that followed weren’t easy.
Doctors confirmed Oliver had a serious growth near his kidney.
He needed treatment, and there were days when he was tired, frightened, and angry about being in the hospital.
Patricia sent messages asking how he was.
David answered them, but he stopped promising visits on Oliver’s behalf.
When Oliver was ready, he agreed to see her.
She arrived without a gift.
“I’m sorry I made jokes about your tummy,” she told him. “I was wrong. You didn’t deserve that.”
Oliver looked at her hands.
“Do you still think I’m too big?”
“No, sweetheart.”
“For your chair?”
Patricia swallowed.
“That chair was never supposed to make you feel unwanted. You can sit beside me, or on my lap if you’re comfortable. You get to choose.”
Oliver didn’t hug her.
He asked if she still had his dinosaur books.
She said she did.
Over the following months, their visits were short.
Sometimes he wanted her to read.
Sometimes he didn’t.
She stopped commenting on his body.
When he said he was tired, she listened.
The first time she read to him again, he sat on the other end of the sofa.
Patricia opened the dinosaur book to the page with the footprints.
“You remember this one?” she asked.
Oliver nodded, but he didn’t move closer.
She read anyway.
Halfway through, he corrected her pronunciation of a dinosaur’s name.
Patricia smiled and tried again.
When the book ended, she didn’t ask for a kiss.
She closed it and said she would bring the next one if he wanted.
After she left, Oliver asked me, “Was Grandma mad because I didn’t hug her?”
“No,” I said. “And even if she was disappointed, you wouldn’t have done anything wrong.”
He considered that.
“Can she bring the book with the flying one next time?”
One afternoon, several months after the birthday dinner, we had cake at home to celebrate a good day after treatment.
Oliver was sitting beside Patricia, showing her a dinosaur he’d drawn.
I brought out the cake.
He reached for a slice, then stopped.
David noticed.
“Which piece do you want, buddy?”
Oliver pointed to the chocolate dinosaur.
“That one. The one with the biggest head.”
David handed it to him.
Oliver took a bite and kept talking about dinosaurs.
May you like
His shirt stayed where it was.
And nobody at that table had anything to say about his stomach.
