One afternoon, their family received good news.
Very good news.
Leo laughed in the hallway.
Someone hugged him.
He started crying.
Chris had just left a meeting where Ethan’s doctors had told us another treatment had failed.
Walking past Leo, he snapped, “Could you celebrate somewhere else?”
The hallway fell silent.
Leo apologized.
Chris regretted it almost immediately but never went back to make things right.
Ethan had witnessed everything from his doorway.
Leo had seen him too.
The following afternoon, Leo stopped by Ethan’s room, challenged him to one game on the plastic football field, lost badly, and never once asked how Ethan was feeling.
Ethan liked him immediately.
Now Leo was coming down the stadium steps with everyone else.
Ethan whispered, “Dad, don’t be weird.”
Chris looked at him.
“I’m not weird.”
“You are sometimes.”
Despite everything happening around us, I laughed.
Ray reached our row and held up the tabletop game.
