The heavy wool coat slid right out of his hands and dropped onto the empty blue chair behind him.

“I’m not leaving, Mom,” Ethan said.

Sylvia gasped, stepping back as if he had slapped her.

“What did you just say to me?” she asked, her voice jumping up an octave.

“I can’t leave,” Ethan said, his voice quiet but firm enough to carry across the waiting room.

“June is sick, and I’m staying with my wife.”

“She has her mother here,” Sylvia said, stepping closer until her long velvet coat brushed his trousers.

“Rachel works in emergency medicine for a living,” Sylvia added, pointing a finger at my chest.