We were trying to get him to talk about the crappy grades poking holes in his report card as we sat through our platefuls of chicken cutlets and fries and smoky, brick-red dollops of barbecue sauce. I kept thinking it was as easy - or as hard - as asking the right question, and set about the task of digging through the mud as his face floated in tepid, untranslatable silence. I was a persistent archeologist. Always have been. I found a thousand different ways to ask "What's wrong?" and "How can we help?" but he kept rifling through his hair in the monastic mutiny of teenage boys. There was a full glass of water to my left. I couldn't believe what I was about to do in the name of love, but we were both tired of this familiar, broken script. I closed my eyes and threw.