It was the kind of morning that existed to make a point. Sun through the window at the angle that said: today is available, today has arrived and the offer is sincere.

  I heard birds. Three species. I identified them by call. I hadn't slept, which was not unusual.

  Wei woke, which started with a stretch. Full-body, total commitment, the extension of every limb to its maximum reach as though sleep were a container he was climbing out of hand over foot. Then a yawn. Then he opened his eyes — brown, alert, bright the way fourteen was bright when healthy and rested — facing the morning.

  He sat up. Pushed hair from his face and noticed me in the doorway.

  "How long have you been up?"

  "A while."

  "You should sleep." He said it as observation, not concern.

  "Tea?"

  "Already made."

  He grinned. The grin that said I had already done the thing he was offering and redundancy was funny because it proved we were synchronized.

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  He dressed. Fast. The speed of purpose — putting on clothes not as preparation but as the first act of a day that had already started.

  "I'm going to Lao Chen's."

  Stated. Not asked. The grammar of someone whose asking phase was over.

  "Tell him the second-form transition still drifts."

  "I know. I felt it yesterday." He was already moving. Already at the door. Already halfway into the day while I was still standing in the doorway holding tea. "I'll fix it."

  I'll fix it. Not: will you show me. Not: can you help. The pronoun shift. The grammatical evidence of autonomy.

  He stepped outside. Barefoot — the choice that had become preference, instead of a lack of opportunity. Wei wanted to feel the thing he walked on because walking was an act and it deserved sensation.

  The sun hit his hair. Brown. With the gold that sun produced on dark hair when the angle was correct.

  He ran.

  Not jogging. Running. The run of someone for whom the distance between here and there was an invitation and invitations were accepted at full speed because speed was joy and joy was available.

  He turned the corner. Past Auntie Huang's house, past the garden wall, past the point where the path bent toward Lao Chen's workshop.

  He didn't look back.

  I stood in the doorway. Tea in my hand. The cold version. The version that was consistent and mine in the way that cold tea was always mine because warm tea required timing, which required presence and presence was the thing I was spending on him.

  The dust his feet had lifted settled. The air had the distinct sensation of someone moving through it quickly — warmer, displaced, still vibrating.

  I stood in our garden, with the three pots a blade fragment that was catching morning light and the stone.

  Morning. This morning. The kind that existed to make a point.

  It's going to be fine this time. Maybe.

  He turned the corner and was gone.

  He didn't look back.