One day, while Neil and Andrew were grocery shopping, a child bumped into Neil and stared blankly at his face, not saying a word. He then stared at him from opposite ends of the store for the next ten minutes. Neil, accustomed to such attention to his scars, ignored the boy until, by an unfortunate coincidence, they found themselves in the checkout line with him.
Then Neil awkwardly began to look away, seeking some solace in Andrew's imperturbable face, while the child continued to stare at him, barely blinking. What troubled Neil most was that he couldn't understand the child's expression. Children's facial expressions are usually predictable—fear, disgust, embarrassment, curiosity. Neil encountered similar expressions almost daily and had long since stopped paying attention, but this child's face was completely expressionless.
Eventually, the boy's mother noticed her child's intense attention, smiled nervously at Neil, and sheepishly asked her son in German (hoping they wouldn't understand) why he was staring so inappropriately. The boy sincerely replied, "He's so handsome."
Andrew would give Neil a condescendingly satisfied look, and Neil himself would cherish this casual compliment for months to come.
