I kept thinking about the bathroom explanation.
Lauren had said Tommy fell.
She had said she intended to tell me.
But she hadn't told me when she dropped him off.
Instead, she had called him dramatic.
I couldn't make those two things fit together.
I remembered the way she had spoken from the car.
She hadn't sounded concerned.
She hadn't asked me to check on him.
She hadn't suggested that he might need medical attention.
She had simply left.
I knew what I had heard.
I also knew what I had seen when Tommy entered the house.
His movements were uncomfortable.
His face was pale.
His eyes looked as though he had been crying for a long time.
And when he tried to sit, the pain was obvious.
I didn't know what had caused it.
I wasn't going to invent an answer.
But I wanted the medical staff to understand everything I had observed.
I wanted them to know exactly how he had arrived.
I wanted the officer to know that Lauren had left before anyone realized how serious his condition was.
Those facts mattered.
I thought about the school meetings.
Lauren had always been composed.
She knew how to speak to teachers.
She knew how to make difficult conversations sound simple.
I had often left those meetings feeling that I had failed to explain what I was seeing.
Perhaps I hadn't chosen the right words.
Perhaps I had allowed my frustration to show.
But Tommy's behavior had never stopped worrying me.
His silence had continued.
His anxiety about Mondays had continued.
And now we were in a hospital.
I looked at the empty chair beside me.
I wondered how Tommy would feel when he came out.
Would he ask where I had been?
Would he be frightened?
Would he want to go home?
I didn't know.
I would let him tell me.
I wouldn't rush him.
I had learned that some questions needed to wait until a child felt safe enough to answer.
That was something I wished I had understood earlier.
I looked toward the door again.
I remained available.
Click here to continue reading: PART 19: I Was No Longer Trying to Prove That I Was a Good Father, Because My Son Needed Something Much More Important Than Another Argument
The Sunday My Son Stopped Running Into My Arms, and I Finally Understood That Something Was Terribly Wrong
Part 18 of 24
