He stood in the doorway as I put on my shoes and lifted my jacket over my shoulders. He was wearing an "I Love NY" t-shirt and red shorts with his insulin pump clipped just off-center - tubing dangling haphazardly and looping like a roller coaster.

"In school we made these bowls out of clay and we took leaves and we pressed them down into the bowl …"

He spoke.

"And then we took this gooey paste stuff and we painted it all over the bowls …"

But I didn’t hear him.

I nodded and said "uh-huh" but I didn’t hear him. My eyes were fixed on his insulin pump clipped to his waist band. It’s been six years since his diagnosis, but today … today, I can’t believe he has diabetes.

"After we were finished, Mrs. Hanna put the bowls in a kiln and they came out really shiny. I used red leaves for mine, but you could really use any color you wanted …"

Today the pump looked to me as grave as a feeding tube and as heavy as a brick. Today the pump looked like it had grown overnight. Today, Charlie looked to me like a sick kid. I can’t believe he’s wearing this thing. This hard mechanical thing that puts lines in his skin and presses sharp against his bone. This thing that he drags around like an anchor.

"I used red leaves because … "

"I don’t know, I just like red."

And he smiled.