Chapter 2 - The Ambulance Ride to Truth
The sirens wailing outside the clinic window drowned out the roaring in my ears as I climbed into the back of the ambulance beside Ethan’s stretcher. The paramedic was busy strapping oxygen tubing across my son’s face, shouting readings to the driver up front.
"Hold on, buddy," the paramedic urged. "We're almost at St. Jude's."
I gripped Ethan’s cold, lifeless hand. "Why, Ethan?" I choked out, the tears finally breaking free from my eyes. "Why didn't you tell me? Why did you hide that bottle?"
Ethan turned his head weakly on the pillow, a tear tracking through the dust on his cheek. "You... you were always working, Dad. You were always paying bills, talking to doctors, buying machines. Every time I said I hurt, you just brought home another pill or scheduled another test. I didn't want to be a project anymore. A boy from my class said this made his brother feel normal."
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The words sliced through my chest sharper than any scalpel. In my obsessive quest to throw money at the problem, to buy the best care that four billion dollars could afford, I had built an emotional fortress so impenetrable that my own son felt he had to poison himself in secret rather than burden me with his pain.
Lily and her grandmother had stayed behind at the clinic, but her voice echoed endlessly in my mind: They keep treating the number instead of the reason.
