WHEN HE STEPPED OUTSIDE

Hearing a knock on the front door, I checked on the stove before heading to answer it.

‘Hi Mum,’ my son Billy, 16, said before coming in with his then girlfriend.

‘You’re just in time for dinner,’ I laughed, plating up the food in the kitchen.

It was July last year, and Billy made a conscious effort to come over for dinner a couple times a week, after he had been living with his girlfriend just around the corner.

We had always been really close, and it was nice to see him, even though I knew he was safe living a few streets away.

Billy was comfortable in my company, but he had always suffered socially and with autism he wasn’t always so confident in public situations.

So much so, when things