We were in the car, on the way to an appointment. It was after school, and we had done our “three things” conversation already, where he tells me three things about his school day.

We passed a car on the side of the road, and the conversation shifted to owning a car. Maintenance, or insurance, something about what it costs to keep one running.

“At least I don’t have to worry about that,” he said. “Because I can’t drive.”

He said it the way he’d say anything else. No weight on it. It sat in the middle of a sentence about something other than him.

I had my hands on the wheel. Something in the car stopped. It felt like it lasted forever, and it wasn’t a breath. Then we kept talking about whatever we’d been talking about.

It isn’t the first time he’s said it. It comes up sideways, attached to a cost or a hassle, like a small thing he’s been spared.

Last winter, his neurologist told him probably not. He asked her himself, in the exam room, after weeks of carrying the question around. She has known him almost ten years. She didn’t soften it. I sat there and watched him take it without moving. A few days later, I asked how he was doing. He said he was okay, and then, when I pressed a little, disappointed and resigned. Then we were done. That was the conversation.

I think I hoped it would be enough. One answer, one check-in, a feeling named, and the thing would be finished and filed.

His friends talk about licenses now. Permits, driving tests, who passed and who didn’t. Not all of them. A few of the kids he knows have seizures too, and they won’t get one either. He’s in those conversations. I don’t know what it’s like to sit in them.

I didn’t say anything in the car. I didn’t ask. The conversation was already moving, and I let it carry both of us past.

It stayed with me.

One night after dinner we were on the couch watching hockey. I asked him if he still thought about not being able to drive.

“Sometimes,” he said.

I asked how he felt about it.

“Some good, some bad.”

I wanted to tell him I understood. I wanted to say I was sorry. I wanted to take some of it off him, whatever it weighed.

But I don’t understand. I can’t. I can drive. I can do a lot of things he may never be able to do.

So I didn’t say either of those things. I told him that made sense. I told him something like this has a lot of feelings in it, and they change, and some days one side is louder than the other. That however he felt was okay.

I thanked him for telling me.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

We went back to watching the game.

I’m glad I checked in. It won’t be the last time we talk about it. If I avoid these conversations, he’s left holding those feelings by himself, and the only reason I’d avoid them is that I hope they’ll resolve, because that’s easier for me. It’s my job to engage.

It probably won’t get easier. But the more we do it, the more it becomes just what we do.