For Ethan.
She walked directly past me.
She picked up his coat from the chair and shoved it toward him.
“Come on.”
I stared at her.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m taking Ethan home with me. He can sleep in his old room for a few hours before his presentation.”
For a second, I honestly thought I had misunderstood.
“We’re waiting for June to see the doctor.”
Sylvia looked at me as though that were obvious but irrelevant.
“He’s exhausted. He cannot sit here all night.”
“So am I.”
Her expression hardened.
“You’re her mother.”
Then, right there in the waiting room, Sylvia finally said out loud what she had been communicating for years.
“He didn’t sign up for this much stress. You’re the mother. Figure it out.”
The room became silent.
Not ordinary silence.
The uncomfortable silence that falls over a public space when everyone suddenly realizes they have become witnesses to something private.
I looked at Sylvia.
Then Ethan.
He was holding his coat.
And waiting.
That was the moment everything became clear to me.
Ethan had learned to wait.
Wait for someone else to decide.
Wait for someone else to handle things.
Wait until discomfort disappeared.
He had learned that if he waited long enough, another person—usually a woman—would eventually take responsibility.
Sylvia had arrived to continue that lesson.
