Ruiz said.

“No single test tells us everything.

It would be irresponsible to promise a timeline.”

At the end of the meeting, Kenneth stared through the window at the hospital garden.

“For eighteen months,” he said, “I told my boys to be brave while they slept next to something that shouldn’t have been there.”

The doctor did not try to comfort him with a false certainty.

“Now you know enough to change that,” she said.