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I get home from my shift a little after seven-thirty, on no real sleep, with about an hour before we have to leave for church. Which is how I end up standing in Bo’s doorway at eight-fifteen, watching a war.

Getting dressed is a quiet war for him, and by the time I get to his door, he’s sitting on the floor in his underwear with clothes thrown across the room.

“They’re wrong,” he says. “All of them are wrong.”

“Okay.” I sit on the edge of his bed. Not too close. “What’s wrong about them?”

“The new shorts Grandma bought me have the thing inside.” He glares at a folded pair of athletic shorts like they’ve personally wronged him. “The liner. That extra layer they sew into gym shorts, like built-in underwear. It bunches, and I can feel it the whole entire day, and I told you I hate it.”

“You did tell me.”

“It touches me the whole time and I can’t think about anything else.”

Here’s the thing about my kid. He is not being difficult. I spent years thinking he was being difficult, and I was wrong, and it took a good psychiatrist and a lot of humility to understand that when Bo says a fabric is unbearable, it is unbearable. The way a rock in your shoe is unbearable.

So a while back, we figured out the shorts.

There is exactly one pair of shorts in the world Bo can wear without thinking about them. Soft gray. Drawstring, so he can cinch them himself. No pockets, because pockets bunch. No built-in liner, because the liner is the enemy. And they have to sit above the knee, because if they touch his knees when he sits, that is a whole separate conversation.

When we found them, I bought five pairs. Same brand, same size, same color. Because a kid should get to have one thing in his day that doesn’t fight him, and if that thing is shorts, then we will own five pairs of the shorts.

“You’ve got clean ones in the second drawer,” I say. “The gray ones.”

His whole body changes. War over, that fast.

“I already wore the gray ones last Sunday,” he says, testing whether that’s allowed.

“So? Nobody at church is keeping a chart of your shorts.”

“I might be keeping a chart.”

“Then it’s your chart, and you can allow it.”

He weighs this, then he goes to the second drawer, pulls out the gray shorts, cinches the drawstring and stands up. Fine. Completely fine. Ten minutes of misery, solved.

“Okay,” he says, like none of it happened. “I’m ready. Is Olivia coming to church?”

“She said she would.”

“Good.” He pulls a soft shirt over his head. “You should marry her. Then I don’t have to ask if she’ll be there.”

I don’t choke this time. I’m getting better at this. “Buddy. It doesn’t exactly work like that.”

“Why not?”

“Go brush your teeth. We’re going to be late, and you know how you feel about late.”

“Late is the worst,” he agrees, and goes.

I sit on his bed one more second, in the wreckage of clothes, and I let myself think about the fact that today’s the day Olivia and I will reassess this friendship.

Then I go find my own shoes.

She’s already there when we walk in.

Third row. Our row, apparently. Olivia’s sitting there in a soft blue dress with a cream cardigan, and when she sees us come down the aisle Bo breaks formation.

He sits between us. Climbs in and plants himself in the exact middle of the row, Dottie on the end, then Olivia, then Bo, then me, and he looks up and down the row twice, taking inventory, making sure everyone he wants is where he wants them.