By Élodie Khoury

Patrick’s allergies arrived right on schedule with the cherry blossoms, bringing their usual parade of indignities. Sneezing into his elbow at the grocery store, watery eyes during story time, and that mortifying moment when three sneezes erupted during Silas's naptime and woke up his grandson.

"Seven points!" Silas announced from his crib, wide awake and grinning.

Patrick paused in the doorway, tissue pressed to his nose. "What's seven points, bug?"

"That sneeze." Silas pointed at him with the certainty of a tiny referee making a call. "Big one. Loud. Scared the cat. Seven points for Grandpa Pat."

Patrick had assumed Silas was just playing one of his mysterious toddler games, the kind where blocks become horses and the living room rug transforms into an ocean. But over the following days, Patrick noticed a pattern.

Small sneezes, the kind he could muffle into his shoulder, earned two or three points. Medium ones got four or five. The really dramatic ones, where his whole body participated and his glasses slid down his nose, were the seven-pointers that Silas announced with visible pride.

"What do the points mean?" Patrick asked one afternoon while Silas colored in his sketch book.

"Keeping track," Silas said seriously, adding what looked like a tally mark. "So you know you're getting better."

Patrick felt something catch in his chest that had nothing to do with allergies. He'd been so embarrassed by his sneezing, apologizing constantly to his daughter Meg, worried he was disrupting Silas's routines or making him uncomfortable with his red nose and watery eyes.

But his grandson had turned his mortification into a game. 

"How many points do I have in total?" Patrick asked.

Silas consulted his book with the gravity of an accountant reviewing spreadsheets. "Eighty-two," he announced. "Need eighteen more for the big prize."

"What's the big prize?"

Silas looked at him like Patrick had asked what color the sky was. "You feel better. That's the prize, Grandpa Pat."

Patrick laughed, which triggered a medium-sized sneeze.

"Four points!" Silas called out. "Good one. Eighty-six now."

Over the following days, Patrick found himself almost looking forward to the point announcements. Silas had criteria Patrick was only beginning to understand. A sneeze that made the cat run earned bonus points. One that happened during a funny moment in a story got extra credit for timing. The rare double-sneeze was worth twelve points total, but only if both sneezes were "good quality," whatever that meant to a toddler.

"Ninety-four points," he reported one morning, checking his book. "Close now."

Patrick's allergies were actually starting to ease up as they always did by late April. The medication helped, and the pollen count was dropping. He'd almost forgotten about Silas's point system when it happened.

Patick was reading Silas’s favorite book about the bear who couldn't sleep when a tiny, almost imperceptible sneeze escaped, barely worthy of notice.

"One hundred!" Silas shouted, throwing his arms in the air like a referee signaling a touchdown. "You did it, Grandpa Pat! You sneezed all the allergies out!"

Patrick blinked. His nose, which had been stuffy for weeks, suddenly felt clear. His eyes weren't itching. The pressure in his sinuses had vanished.

"I think I do feel better," he said, genuinely surprised.

"Because you did the work," Silas said seriously, patting his hand. "The sneezes got them all out. That's how it works."

Later, after Silas went down for his nap, Patrick sat in the quiet living room thinking about what his grandson had done. Silas had taken something that made Patrick feel self-conscious and vulnerable, and transformed it into an achievement. A goal to reach.

Patrick realized Silas had been caring for his feelings all along. Making Patricks’s embarrassing moments into a game so he wouldn't feel bad about them. Turning his allergy season into something they could track together, something with an endpoint, something positive.

When Patrick’s daughter Meg came home that evening, he was still thinking about it.

"You look different," Meg observed. "Allergies better?"

"Silas says I sneezed them all out," Patrick said, smiling. "Reached one hundred points."

Meg looked confused, but Patrick didn't elaborate. Some things only made sense between a grandfather and his grandson. Some scorekeeping systems existed solely to remind you that someone was paying attention, keeping track, making sure you knew someone cared.

That night, as Patrick got ready for bed, he noticed Silas had left his sketch book open on the coffee table. Page after page of careful marks, tallies and scribbles that looked random until you understood what they were tracking.

At the bottom of the last page, Silas had drawn a picture. Two stick figures, one tall and one small, holding hands. Above them, he'd written in wobbly letters: "100!!" with three stars around it.

Patrick felt his eyes water, but this time it had nothing to do with allergies.