“Mom!” he shouted, his voice bubbling with excitement. “Ethan came to see me!”
I froze, the words hanging in the air, their meaning still taking a moment to settle into my mind. “Ethan?” I whispered, my heart hammering in my chest. “What do you mean?”
“He was here,” Noah said, his face lighting up as though this were the most natural thing in the world. “He came to see me at school!”
I crouched down, meeting his wide, innocent eyes. My throat tightened, and the world felt like it was tilting beneath me. “Honey, what did he say?”
Noah’s smile faltered for a moment, as if he were searching for the right words. Then, with the seriousness that only a child could possess, he answered, “He said you should stop crying.”
The words hit me like a punch to the gut. I nodded, forcing a smile. “Oh, sweetie,” I whispered, smoothing his hair, my fingers trembling. “You missed him today?”
“No,” Noah frowned, his small brow furrowing with confusion. “He was here, Mom. Right here. At school.”
I hugged him tighter, hoping that the tightness in my chest would loosen, but it didn’t. My mind was racing. Ethan had been gone for six months. I had never seen his body after the crash; I never got that closure. The doctor had told me that I wasn’t strong enough, that I couldn’t handle it. But what I didn’t realize was that not seeing him was just another kind of wound, another part of the loss I was never meant to face.
The drive home was quiet, too quiet. Noah hummed softly in the backseat, his feet kicking the back of the seat. I stared at the road ahead, but my mind was somewhere else. I saw another road, the one where a truck crossed the yellow line, and everything changed. Ethan’s death still haunted me in ways I couldn’t explain. It had been my fault, I kept telling myself. Mark had been driving, but the weight of the blame hung on me like a shroud.
Noah didn’t notice the darkness settling over me, and I was grateful for that. He was so innocent, so untouched by the heaviness that had taken over my life. I wanted to shield him from it, protect him from the weight of grief that threatened to swallow us both. But I couldn’t. Not when he said things like this.
That night, as I stood at the kitchen sink, my hands submerged in suds, Mark came into the room. His eyes were tired, his face drawn with lines that hadn’t been there before. We had both changed since the accident, but we hadn’t yet learned how to heal.
“Noah okay?” Mark asked, his voice soft but filled with concern.
I nodded, not looking at him. “He said Ethan visited him today,” I said quietly.
Mark paused, his fingers brushing the side of his forehead. “Kids say things,” he said, though his voice lacked conviction.
I looked at him, the weight of my own grief too much to carry alone. “He said Ethan told him to stop crying.”
Mark’s face flickered with something – disbelief, confusion, maybe even fear. “Maybe it’s how he’s coping,” he said, but there was an edge to his voice that made it sound more like a question.
I couldn’t say anything in response. Instead, I stared at the sink, my fingers gripping the edge of the counter, and I felt the tears start to come. Not just for Ethan, but for all of us. For the life we had lost, for the silence that had replaced it.
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