A nurse from Ethan’s floor followed with Cody and his mother.
Ethan’s mouth fell open.
“No way.”
All the color left his face.
I looked at him. Whatever he’d expected when the announcer told us to turn around, this wasn’t it.
Then Ray lifted the battered tabletop game, and Ethan started laughing.
***
Three months earlier, football had still been something ordinary in our house.
Whatever he’d expected when the announcer told us to turn around, this wasn’t it.
Sunday afternoons meant Chris yelling at the television, Ethan correcting him, and me pretending I wasn’t invested while complaining louder than either of them whenever I thought the referees had missed something.
“Mom,” Ethan once told me, laughing, “you don’t even know the rules.”
“I know cheating when I see it.”
“You don’t even know the rules.”
Chris nearly choked on his chips.
Then Ethan’s cancer stopped responding to treatment.
The doctor asked Chris and me to step outside Ethan’s hospital room one afternoon.
I remember staring at the tiny cartoon football Ethan had taped to his door while the doctor spoke.
Ethan’s cancer stopped responding to treatment.
“I’m truly sorry,” he said. “The treatment isn’t working the way we’d hoped.”
Chris asked every question.
What else could they try?
Was there another trial?
Another medication?
Another hospital?
I couldn’t get past one sentence.
“We may be looking at much less time than we’d hoped.”
“The treatment isn’t working the way we’d hoped.”
When we returned to Ethan’s room, a game was playing on television.
Chris sat beside him.
Their team scored.
For one second, Chris jumped out of his chair.
“YES!”
Ethan burst out laughing.
Then Chris immediately leaned over him.
“You okay, Captain?”
A game was playing on television.
Ethan’s smile faded a little.
“Dad, I laughed.”
“I know.”
“I’m allowed.”
Chris sat back.
“Of course you are.”
I lifted my phone.
Click.
Ethan looked at me.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I said.
But from then on, almost everything became something I wanted to save.
Almost everything became something I wanted to save.
Ethan eating cereal.
Him sleeping with one sock on.
The face he made at hospital gelatin, or the hours spent arguing with Chris over football statistics.
Pictures.
Short videos.
Voice recordings.
I told myself I was collecting our life.
I didn’t realize I was being noticed.
I told myself I was collecting our life.
