“My brave boy,” he whispered.
I gripped the doorframe so hard my nails hurt.
My father took Ethan’s small hand between both of his and closed his eyes.
For a moment, there was no billionaire in the room. No founder. No chairman. No man people feared in boardrooms.
Only a grandfather.
Only a man who had lost his grandson.
When he finally looked up, something terrible had settled into his face.
“Tell me everything,” he said.
So I did.
I told him about the first cough after dinner.
The wheezing.
The inhaler that didn’t help.
The drive through the rain with Ethan gasping in the back seat while I begged him to hold on.
I told him how Ethan cried for Garrett when the oxygen mask went over his face.
How I called again and again.
How the nurses recognized me from the ER and tried to be strong for me, even though their eyes were wet.
How Dr. Harris said they were moving fast, doing everything, pushing epinephrine, calling respiratory, calling the code.
How Ethan’s tiny fingers squeezed mine once before his heart stopped.
How I climbed onto the step stool beside the bed and started compressions because my body refused to accept that I was his mother and not his nurse.
My father listened without interrupting.
By the end, his face had gone gray.
“And Garrett answered none of the calls?”
“None.”
“Not one text?”
“No.”
“He arrived at 2:17?”
I nodded.
My father checked his watch, though I knew he already knew the time.
