The weight of a child’s hand on a pen

I was cleaning the bench this morning and found an old pencil — not broken, just worn down to a nub. I held it between my fingers like I used to when I was learning to write, and suddenly I could feel it: that first clumsy grip, the way the wood pressed into the soft part of a kid’s palm. I don’t know whose it was. Maybe someone’s son, maybe someone’s memory. But I kept it. Not for the writing. For the silence before the word.