“. . . can’t,” Beau finally said, and before I could even ask why, he was suddenly on his feet, his walk uneven as he went over to his bookcase.

When he sat down on the bed beside me, he was holding out a small picture frame for me to take. Carefully holding the frame, I bit down on my lip to keep from smiling as I looked over the photo. It was of Beau, maybe seven or eight years old, and a woman who was obviously his mother. She was very pretty with a bright smile, her long brown hair falling around her face in pretty waves. Beau had clearly gotten his brilliant green eyes from her.

YOUR MOTHER? I signed, passing the picture back to Beau.

YES, Beau signed back. His eyes were a little brighter than normal as he set the picture face down on his pillow. “. . . my fault she died.”

My mind went blank at Beau’s words. I couldn’t even come up with anything to sign or say. Even if I was having difficulty stringing words together, Beau wasn’t. He was in the middle of something here, and I wasn’t about to stop him.

Beau held up a finger, signaling me to wait a second, and bent over, carefully rolling up his right pant leg. I leaned over to see that scar of his up close, and then I sort of wished I hadn’t.

He started signing once his pant leg was carefully rolled up to his knee. His first sign was, CAR, followed by finger spelling, C-R-A-S-H.

BROKE, he added, tapping the side of his leg. TIME THREE. BAD. A LOT . . . S-U-R-G-E-R-I-E-S. “Spent . . . time . . . hospital,” he finished aloud.

My mind zipped back to that day when Connor was in the hospital and I’d found Beau in the waiting room chatting with a nurse. He must’ve spent a fair amount of time in the hospital if he was still friendly with the nurses.

When Beau signed, MY MOTHER, next and a tremor ran through his hand, my breath caught. I really hoped I was wrong about what his next sign was going to be. I knew it was coming, but a wave of sadness still threatened to suffocate me when Beau signed, DIE.

Beau and his mother had been in a car crash. Apart from his leg, Beau apparently made it out relatively unscathed. His mother hadn’t.

It was good my preferred method of communication was sign language, because I couldn’t trust myself to speak. But just signing, SORRY, didn’t seem like enough.

It clearly was not fine when Beau signed back, FINE.

REALLY, I signed next.

What else could I say?

“Is that why you, um . . . I mean, in the cold, you have trouble walking? Because of your leg. You sit with your leg all stretched out in front of you too.”