He is holding my hand, my son, now 32, balder than he was when he was born. We’ve gone to Ponto Final, a restaurant on the Tagus River in Almada, Portugal. We’ve had sourdough bread and butter. Oily garlic olives. We shared soup, cod fritters with boiled potatoes and another cod dish with rice and beans. I drank two glasses of a delicious red wine. Since he was driving, he had a Coke.

To get to this restaurant, which he heard about on a travel show, we walked down several flights of concrete stairs in the dark. No hand railing. No lights. Just the two of us wondering if we’d get robbed or murdered on the way down.

It’s my last night in Portugal and my son wants to treat me. Even though it’s winter and chilly, we sit at an outdoor table on the edge of a concrete pier, no railing separating the diners from the river below. The reporter in me slips in and I have to ask the server if anyone has ever lost their balance and fallen over. “Never,” he assures me, pouring my first glass of wine.

I’m wearing two coats and a wool headband. We’re both wrapped in the blankets the server handed us when we arrived. I took two. The wine and good food heats me from the inside out. I’m warm and happy. My son is glowing. We talk and laugh as we have for a week straight. This perfect trip feels like a dream I’ll wake from and wish were real.

When he was a newborn fresh out of the bath, I held him close, breathed in his skin, his hair and pleaded with God to not let me fuck him up. And here we are, 32 years and a few months later, and he’s so kind and gentle and compassionate and funny and smart and a smart ass. He sees me through fresh eyes now, a grown man who loves his mother, who wants to make sure she knows it; that he’s grateful for her.

I don’t need these words, but every mama needs these words.

After dinner, he pays the check. Tips the server. We head back up the dark stairwell and begin the climb to what feels like the moon. He takes my hand, stops when I need to stop.

“Take as much time as you need, Mom,” he says, holding my hand and waiting.