Ethan had grown quieter as the afternoon continued.
He sat beside me with his feet dangling above the floor.
Every so often, he looked toward the hallway.
Then he looked down at his shoes.
I knew he was thinking about his mother.
I was doing the same.
For most of the day, I had tried to keep my memories in order.
There were things I could remember clearly.
Laura's smile.
Her voice when she called Ethan for dinner.
The way she stood in the kitchen with one hand resting on the counter while she listened to me talk about work.
Other memories came in pieces.
A sentence without its beginning.
A face appearing for a moment.
The sound of a door closing.
Grief did strange things to time.
It made yesterday feel far away and years ago feel close enough to touch.
Ethan leaned toward me.
“Dad?”
“I'm here.”
“Can you remember Mommy's voice?”
The question caught me off guard.
“Yes,” I said.
“What did it sound like?”
I smiled faintly despite myself.
“Depends what she was saying.”
He looked at me seriously.
“What if she was calling my name?”
I swallowed.
I could remember Laura calling him from the kitchen.
I could remember the patience in her voice when she asked him to come and brush his teeth.
I could remember the sharper tone she used when he ignored her more than once.
I could remember the way she softened immediately when he ran to her with tears in his eyes.
“She sounded like your mom,” I said. “You knew her voice better than anybody.”
He nodded.
“I knew it.”
I didn't challenge him.
I didn't tell him that memories could be powerful or that a grieving child might interpret sounds differently.
We had already discussed those possibilities.
At that moment, he wasn't asking me to solve the mystery.
He was asking me to remember his mother with him.
So I did.
I told him about the way she used to sing while putting things away around the house.
He smiled a little.
“She didn't sing very well.”
I let out a quiet laugh.
“No, she didn't.”
“She said she was good.”
“She believed it.”
For a moment, something familiar passed between us.
It wasn't happiness exactly.
It was recognition.
We were still a father and son who knew the same woman, who had shared the same home and the same ordinary moments.
Laura was not only the person whose death we were trying to understand.
She was also the person we loved.
I wanted Ethan to keep that distinction.
I wanted him to remember more than the funeral and the waiting room.
He leaned against me again.
“I wish she could sing now.”
“So do I.”
Across the room, Laura's mother had begun to cry quietly.
She wiped her cheeks and looked toward the window.
I understood.
Every memory we shared brought Laura close for a moment, then reminded us that she wasn't sitting with us.
I reached over and offered her a tissue.
She accepted it.
“Thank you.”
We sat together in silence.
The medical team continued its work.
No one had come out with a final explanation.
I had begun to understand that the assessment might take longer than any of us wanted.
That didn't mean it was going badly.
It didn't mean it was going well.
It meant the professionals were still gathering the information they needed.
I had to stop treating every passing minute as evidence of something.
Ethan was watching me.
“What are you thinking about?”
I looked at him.
“Your mom.”
“Me too.”
He rested his head against my arm.
I remembered the morning of the funeral.
I had stood beside Laura and tried to memorize her face.
I had wanted to carry every detail with me.
Now I wondered whether I had been looking so hard at the woman I was losing that I had forgotten to notice the things that still needed attention.
I couldn't know.
I couldn't change it.
But I could be honest about how frightened I had been.
I could admit that I had wanted the arrangements to proceed because I didn't know how to survive another unexpected turn.
And I could admit that I had almost let that desire silence my son.
I looked down at him.
“Ethan, I'm glad you told me what happened.”
He lifted his head.
“Even though everybody was upset?”
“Even then.”
He considered that.
Then he nodded.
I squeezed his hand.
“You can always tell me when something worries you.”
He leaned against me again.
A few minutes later, footsteps approached the waiting area.
I straightened immediately.
A medical professional appeared at the doorway, spoke briefly with a colleague, and returned to the examination room.
I sat back.
Ethan noticed.
“You thought it was them.”
“I did.”
He looked toward the door.
“Will they tell us when they know?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
I considered the question.
“Because we've asked them to explain what they find, and they're responsible for giving us the information they can.”
He seemed satisfied with that.
I wasn't.
I wanted the next person who came through the door to tell us something definite.
But I was beginning to understand that wanting certainty could not make it arrive sooner.
I looked at Ethan's face.
He was tired, frightened, and still determined to be heard.
I couldn't take away all of that.
I could only sit beside him and keep listening.
Click here to continue reading: PART 16: I Stopped Asking the Waiting Room to Give Me Answers and Prepared Myself to Hear Whatever the Medical Team Could Confirm
My Son Asked Me to Question the One Thing I Thought I Had Already Accepted
Part 15 of 24
