Chapter 14 - Ethan Drew the Road Again
Three years later, Ethan was twelve.
I was twenty.
Ohio State.
Psychology minor I swore had nothing to do with my family.
Nobody believed me.
Ethan lived permanently with Aunt Leah under the final custody arrangement.
Mom remained incarcerated under the sentence resulting from her case.
Gary's case ended separately with substantial consequences for both the old cover-up and what he did to Ethan.
I avoided turning either sentence into arithmetic.
Long enough never feels long enough if you use punishment to measure grief.
Ethan's therapist gave him an art assignment.
Draw the road again.
He refused for six weeks.
Then one afternoon he did.
Black road.
Gray sky.
Green truck.
Dad's bicycle.
Three figures inside.
But this time he drew something else.
Farther down the road.
An ambulance.
I looked at it.
“That wasn't there.”
“I know.”
“Then why draw it?”
He shrugged.
“Because it should've been.”
I almost cried.
Ethan added flashing lights.
Then a tiny stick figure standing beside the road.
“Who's that?”
“Me.”
“You were in the truck.”
“I know.”
“Then why put yourself outside?”
He looked annoyed.
“Brooke, it's a picture. It doesn't have to be evidence.”
I laughed.
Hard.
He did too.
That sentence told me he was getting better.
Not every memory had to serve a case anymore.
Not every drawing had to prove something.
Sometimes green paint was green paint.
That evening, he left the picture on Leah's refrigerator.
No hidden notebook.
May you like
No secret drawer.
Just a kid's drawing held up by a magnet shaped like Ohio.
