Ethan woke when footsteps approached the waiting area.
He lifted his head from my arm and looked toward the door.
I straightened in my chair.
Laura's mother stopped twisting her tissue between her fingers.
The funeral director moved away from the wall.
A medical specialist entered the room.
He didn't look rushed, but he didn't look relaxed either.
He approached me and waited until I stood.
“Mr. Walker, we've completed another stage of the assessment.”
I felt my mouth go dry.
“And?”
“We've identified a finding that requires further medical evaluation. The team is continuing to verify what we've observed.”
I looked at his face.
“Can you tell me whether this changes what we were told about my wife?”
He paused before answering.
“We're not ready to make that determination. I don't want to give you an answer that may turn out to be inaccurate.”
I nodded slowly.
I had begun to understand how carefully he was choosing his words.
I also understood that every careful word left us with another stretch of uncertainty.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“The team will continue the assessment and take the necessary precautions. We'll explain the findings as soon as we can.”
I looked toward the closed door.
“Is there anything we can do?”
“Not at the moment. We need to complete our work.”
He spoke gently, but there was no promise in his voice.
I appreciated that.
I hated it too.
He returned to the examination room.
For a moment, I remained standing.
Then Ethan took my hand.
“Dad?”
I looked down.
“What did he say?”
“They've found something they need to check more carefully.”
“Something about Mommy?”
“Yes.”
He waited.
I crouched so we were looking directly at each other.
“They're still trying to understand it. I don't know any more than that.”
Ethan searched my face.
Then he asked, “Did I help?”
I felt my throat tighten.
“You helped me understand that we needed to ask for another check.”
He nodded, but he didn't look relieved.
He looked worried.
I wanted to protect him from the thought that his words had somehow caused all this.
Nothing he had said had created the situation.
He had simply told us what he believed he heard.
The medical team had made its own observations.
The rest was beyond his responsibility.
“You didn't do anything wrong,” I told him.
He looked down at our hands.
“I know.”
I wasn't sure he did.
So I kept my hand around his until he looked at me again.
Laura's mother came over and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Your daddy is right, sweetheart.”
She tried to smile.
“You told us what you experienced. That's all anyone could ask you to do.”
Ethan leaned into her for a moment.
Then he returned to my side.
I sat down with him.
The specialist's words kept moving through my mind.
A finding requiring further evaluation.
The team verifying what they had observed.
No determination yet.
No final answer.
I had spent the afternoon waiting for someone to tell me whether my son's plea came from grief or from something we had failed to understand.
Now the medical professionals were telling us that their examination had uncovered a concern of its own.
The two things were connected in my mind, but I didn't know how.
I had to resist the urge to fill in the gaps.
I could not decide what the finding meant before the people examining Laura had finished their work.
I could not assume that Ethan's experience explained it.
And I could not dismiss his words simply because they sounded impossible.
All I could do was wait.
I glanced at the clock on the wall.
The hands had moved farther than I expected.
Outside, the rain was easing.
A thin strip of lighter sky had appeared beyond the clouds, but the cemetery grounds would still be wet.
I pictured the fresh earth near Laura's grave.
I pictured the flowers bending under the rain.
Earlier, I had stood there believing that we had come to the end of our time with her.
Now I couldn't even explain what that end meant.
I didn't want to hope for something I couldn't understand.
Hope had become frightening.
It could make a person imagine a future that might never arrive.
But giving up on every possibility before the assessment was complete felt wrong too.
I sat between those two feelings.
Ethan leaned against me.
His grandmother held his other hand.
The funeral director remained nearby, silent and respectful.
We were no longer discussing whether the request had been reasonable.
That question had been answered by the fact that the medical team was still working.
We were no longer debating whether a grieving child could misinterpret something he heard.
That remained possible, but it wasn't enough to explain away the professionals' separate findings.
The assessment had to continue.
A member of the team came out to request additional assistance.
The specialist spoke briefly with another professional, then both returned to the room.
I stood again, but nobody approached us.
I sat back down.
Ethan watched the door.
“Dad, I'm here,” he whispered.
For a second, I thought he was speaking to me.
Then I understood.
He was repeating the words he had said beside his mother's grave.
He was trying to make sure that, wherever his mother was and whatever had happened, she would not be alone.
I wrapped my arm around him.
“I'm here too,” I said.
He rested his head against my side.
I looked at the closed door and thought about the man I had been that morning.
I had believed the worst had already happened.
I had believed there was nothing left to investigate, nothing left to decide, and nothing left to do except help my son learn to live with losing his mother.
Now the medical team was still examining Laura, and we were still waiting for the truth.
I couldn't tell Ethan what the outcome would be.
I couldn't tell Laura's mother what she should prepare herself for.
I couldn't even tell myself which possibility I feared most.
So I stayed beside my son and listened for the next footsteps.
The professionals had not finished their assessment.
Until they did, I would not turn uncertainty into an answer simply because I needed one.
Click here to continue reading: PART 9: I Could No Longer Tell My Son to Stop Hoping When the People Examining His Mother Were Still Asking Questions
My Son Asked Me to Question the One Thing I Thought I Had Already Accepted
Part 8 of 24
