The Year Nicky Didn't Talk

I forgot that Nicky

Didn’t talk for a year

Well, you know,

You have six kids

You keep track of ‘em all

As best you can

But there was that year

Where they were all

Between eight and thirteen
And I might have spent more time

Keeping an eye on the teenager

Because teenagers can be

A real problem

If you don’t keep an eye on them

And I guess while I was doing that

A whole year went by

And Nicky didn’t talk

Now, I should say

I was not the only one

Who didn’t notice

That he wasn’t talking

None of his teachers noticed

His siblings didn’t notice

Even my husband didn’t notice

Well, I shouldn’t say ‘even’

Because he would probably be

The person least likely to notice

Anything strange about the kids

Anytime they do anything

Out of the ordinary

And I point it out to him

He says--

‘Kids are strange’

And he goes right back

To working on this scooter

He’s making out of tin cans

The first time he talked

After he’d been quiet

It hit us all at once

‘Oh my god, Nicky

When was the last time

You talked?’

I started counting backwards

And then I realized

I had not heard my son talk

Since the previous Christmas

When he said ‘Thank you’

After we got him the train set he wanted

How did he go an entire year

Without talking?

But he didn’t seem

That upset about it

He just said

He had nothing to say

But by then, I was already panicking

Thinking about all the other things

I could have been missing out on

In my kids’ lives

My mother thought I was losing it

She told me kids have their own lives

Just like adults

And as long as they’re not being

Robbed by bullies on the playground

Or selling drugs on the seesaw

Then just leave them alone

That was fine for her

But I was not going to be

That kind of mother

I wanted to know everything

The crushes

The grades

The interests

The friends

All of it

...And that was a really exhausting week

I had to just settle on

Making sure they were fed

And clothed

And, you know, loved

I made sure they knew

That if any of them needed me

For something important

I would be there

But that because there were six of them

I couldn’t get into the details

Of their daily lives

And it turns out

They didn’t really want me there anyway

Now is talking

A detail?

No, it’s not

But, you know, Nicky

Never had much to say

That’s how he is

He’s quiet

He keeps to himself

And when he grew up

He told me he went into ‘risk management’

Which means he’s in the CIA

And he thinks

I don’t know that

But I know

Oh believe me, I know

Because a mother

Always knows