I frowned and tightened my grip on the phone.
“I’m sorry… what?”
“A minor. Male. Around ten or eleven years old. His name is Ethan.”
I let out a confused laugh.
“There has to be some mistake. I’m thirty-two, single, and I definitely don’t have a son.”
The nurse paused.
Then she lowered her voice.
“He keeps asking for you. Please… can you come?”
A strange knot formed in my stomach.
“How does he even have my number?”
“We’re still trying to figure that out,” she said. “He was brought in after a traffic accident downtown near Seattle. He’s stable—minor injuries, a concussion, fractured wrist—but he refuses to answer questions unless we contact you.”
I should’ve told them no.
I should’ve suggested social services, police, literally anyone else.
But something in the nurse’s tone unsettled me.
And a scared child asking for me by name from a hospital bed felt impossible to ignore.
