His mouth shut.
There it was.
The silence no excuse could survive.
My father handed the phone back like it was contaminated. Then he looked toward Ethan’s door.
“I’m going in.”
I nodded.
Garrett tried to follow.
My father blocked him with one hand against his chest.
“You will remain here.”
“William—”
“You will remain here,” he repeated, “or I will have security remove you from this hospital before your next breath.”
Garrett looked at me, expecting me to intervene.
I didn’t.
My father opened the door and stepped inside Ethan’s room.
For thirty seconds, no one moved.
Then I heard the sound.
Not a shout.
Not a sob.
A broken breath.
My father had faced hostile takeovers, federal investigations, market collapses, and men with more money than morals. I had seen him bury my mother with dry eyes because he believed grief was something to be handled in private.
But when he saw Ethan, my five-year-old baby, lying still beneath that little blanket, William Sterling made a sound I had never heard before.
It was the sound of a man losing the last soft thing he had left.
I stood slowly and followed him in.
The room was dim now. Someone had lowered the lights. Ethan looked smaller than he had before, his dark lashes resting against cheeks that would never flush with fever or laughter again. His brown curls stuck softly to his forehead, and Captain Ellie lay tucked under his arm as if the little elephant could guard him through whatever came next.
My father stood beside the bed, one hand pressed over his mouth.
Then he bent down.
He kissed Ethan’s forehead.
