His father lowered his head until his forehead nearly touched Ethan’s hand.
“I came.”
“Are you staying?”
The question was quiet.
There was no anger in it.
That made it worse.
His father squeezed his eyes shut.
“Yes.
I’m staying.”
Ethan studied him as if he needed to make sure the words were real.
Then he relaxed against the pillow.
His father tried to speak again.
“I’m sorry, son.
I was scared.
After your mom, I thought if I came here and saw you like this, I—”
Ethan interrupted him.
“It’s okay, Daddy.”
His father stopped.
“No.
It isn’t.”
“Bear kept me company.”
Ethan looked toward me.
“He came every day.”
His father looked across the bed at me.
There were tears running down his face now.
He mouthed two words.
Thank you.
I nodded once.
That night, the three of us stayed exactly where we were.
Nobody tried to make the room cheerful.
Nobody pretended there would be some last-minute miracle.
Nobody talked about survival percentages or treatment options or the things adults say when silence feels too frightening.
We were simply there.
Ethan held his father’s hand on one side and mine on the other.
Sometimes he slept.
Sometimes he woke and asked for water.
Once, near three in the morning, he opened his eyes and asked his father to tell him about his mother.
His father froze.
For weeks, grief had been the reason he couldn’t enter the room.
Now his son was asking him to walk directly into it.
He took a breath.
“Your mom used to sing in the kitchen,” he said.
“Badly.
Very badly.”
Ethan smiled.
“Really?”
“Terrible.
She knew half the words and invented the rest.”
“Did you tell her?”
“Never.
I wanted to stay married.”
A soft laugh escaped Ethan.
His father laughed too, but it folded into a sob halfway through.
Ethan squeezed his hand.
“I remember her perfume.”
