After dinner, I read aloud from a novel I had been meaning to finish for years. I did not ask if he liked it. I simply read. He sat on the floor with his back against the couch, close enough to hear every word but far enough away to feel safe.
When he went to bed, he left his door open just a crack.
That became our language.
Days passed in small increments. I spoke to him without expecting answers, describing what I was doing as I cooked or folded laundry, telling him about the people who came into the library and the questions they asked, pointing out birds on the fence or storms rolling in from the west. He listened. Sometimes his shoulders relaxed. Sometimes they tightened. I learned to read his moods the way you read weather, not by trying to change it but by respecting its patterns.
I packed his lunches with care and slipped handwritten notes into the bag, not instructions or expectations, just observations and reassurances. Most came back untouched. One afternoon, I found a note folded neatly and placed on the counter. It was blank, but it had been handled gently. That felt like an answer.