I was told there was a signed death certificate with a natural cause on it, and that a medical examiner does not take jurisdiction over a natural death with an attending physician’s certificate, and that if I wanted a private post-mortem I would need the consent of the person with authority over the remains.

Which was Fernando.

Every single one of those statements was true and correctly stated and nobody in that hospital did one thing wrong.

I went home to a house in Schertz on the Sunday night and I sat on the floor of a bedroom I had decorated in 2021 for a child who had not slept in it since 2022 and I stayed there until about four in the morning.

And on the Monday I called my father.