Then my son reached for my sleeve.
His fingers barely caught the fabric.
“I told Grandma,” he whispered.
I dropped down beside him.
“Told her what?”
His eyes moved toward my mother.
“That I couldn’t breathe right. Before you came.”
Everything inside me seemed to narrow around those words.
Until then, part of me had still been assuming my mother was reacting badly in the moment.
Maybe she had walked in late. Maybe she had misunderstood how serious it was. Maybe she had seen crying and assumed the worst of the pain had already passed.
