Adrian didn't understand why everyone was crying.
There were so many people in the hospital. Doctors in white coats. Nurses with shoes that clacked on the floor. A policewoman with a belt that had lots of things hanging from it. And his grandmother—his mother's mother—who had come very quickly from Seattle and was crying louder than everyone else.
Adrian was sitting in a blue plastic chair that was much too big for him. His feet didn't touch the floor. They swung back and forth, back and forth, as he stared at the linoleum floor, which had gray patches forming patterns. If you connected the patches in a certain way, they looked like a face.
"Adrian, sweetheart."
His grandmother knelt in front of him. Her eyes were red and swollen. Her makeup had smudged, leaving dark lines on her cheeks. She smelled of that sweet perfume she always wore and something else—something sour that Adrian couldn't name.
"How are you feeling?"
Adrian thought about the question. How was he feeling? The doctor had checked his entire body after the accident. He had moved his arms and legs, shone a light in his eyes, pressed on his stomach. "He's perfectly fine," he had said. "Not a scratch. The car seat did its job."
So physically, Adrian felt okay.
"I'm fine, Grandma."
His grandmother made a strange sound—half a sob, half something else—and hugged him tightly. Too tightly. Adrian didn't know what to do with his hands. Finally, he placed them on her back, patting awkwardly the way he'd seen adults do.
"My poor baby," she whispered into his hair. "My poor, poor baby."
But Adrian didn't feel poor. Just confused.
They had been at the hospital for three hours. Adrian knew it was three hours because there was a clock on the wall with large numbers and moving hands. He had seen the large hand make three complete revolutions. Three revolutions were three hours. It was simple math.
His dad had taught him that.
His dad. Adrian frowned, trying to organize his thoughts. He knew something had happened to his dad. Something bad. The adults had used a lot of words he didn't fully understand. "Severe trauma." "Massive blood loss." "We did everything we could."
And finally, one word he did understand: "I'm sorry."
His mom hadn't stopped crying since then. She was in another room now—the doctor had given her a pill that would make her "rest"—and his grandmother was taking care of her when she wasn't taking care of Adrian.
"Adrian." The policewoman sat in the chair next to him. She was young, with blond hair in a ponytail and a friendly face. Her badge read "Officer Martinez." "Can I ask you a few questions about the accident?"
Adrian nodded.
"Do you remember what happened?"
"We were at the traffic light. It was red. I was counting how long it would take to change."
"And then?"
"There was a loud noise. And everything spun."
"Did you see the other car? The one that hit you?"
Adrian closed his eyes, trying to remember. He'd been watching the traffic light. Not the other car. "No. I just heard the noise."
The officer wrote something in her notebook. "And how did you feel? Were you scared?"
There it was again. How he felt.
Adrian thought carefully before answering, because something told him he should say the right thing. "Yes. I was scared."
It was a lie. He hadn't been scared. Not even a little. He'd felt... calm. Like he was watching everything from a distance. Like it wasn't real.
But he knew saying that would be weird. Kids were supposed to be scared in accidents. That was normal.
The officer smiled—a sad smile—and closed her notebook. "You're very brave, Adrian."
He didn't feel brave. He just felt weird.
Later—Adrian wasn't sure how much later, only that it was night now because the windows were dark—his grandmother gave him a peanut butter sandwich. Adrian wasn't hungry, but he ate it anyway because not doing so seemed like another wrong thing to do.
"Where's Mommy?" he asked between bites.
"Rest, sweetheart. The doctor said she needs to sleep."
"When are we going home?"
His grandmother exchanged a glance with one of the nurses. That look again. The look adults give without words.
"Soon," she said finally. "Very soon."
Adrian finished his sandwich. Then a different doctor came in—an older man with a gray beard—and sat in the chair where the officer had been.
"Hi, Adrian. I'm Dr. Holloway. I'm a special kind of doctor. I don't examine bodies, I examine feelings."
Adrian didn't know what that meant. "Okay?"
"I want to talk to you about your dad."
Adrian's stomach felt strange. Not bad. Just strange. Like when the swing was really high.
"Your dad had a really bad accident. Do you understand what that means?"
"He hurt himself."
"Yes. He hurt himself very, very badly." The doctor paused. "So badly that the other doctors couldn't fix him."
Adrian waited. There were more words coming. He could feel it.
"Your dad died, Adrian. Do you understand what dying means?"
Adrian nodded. They had had a goldfish once. Its name was Nemo. One day Nemo stopped moving. His dad had explained to him that Nemo had died, that it meant he was gone and wasn't coming back.
"Like Nemo," Adrian said.
The doctor blinked. "Who's Nemo?"
"Our fish. He died last year."
"Oh." The doctor cleared his throat. "Yes, sort of. Except your dad was a person, not a fish. People are different. When people die, it's... it's very sad."
Adrian nodded again. He knew he should be sad. His mom was sad. His grandma was sad. Everyone was sad.
But he didn't feel sad.
That wasn't right, was it? He should be sad. His dad had died. His dad who taught him math and ruffled his hair and took him to the park.
Adrian tried to make the sadness come. He closed his eyes and thought about his dad. His crooked smile. How he smelled of aftershave and coffee. His voice saying "good man" when Adrian did something right.
And yes, there was something there. Something tight in his chest. Something that hurt.
But it wasn't exactly sadness. It was more like... emptiness. Like someone had ripped a piece out of him and left a hole.
"Are you sad, Adrian?" the doctor asked gently.
Adrian opened his eyes. "I'm supposed to be."
"It's not about what you're supposed to feel. It's about what you actually feel."
Silence. Adrian looked at his shoes. The Velcro straps were still perfectly attached.
"I don't know how I feel," he finally said, and it was the truest thing he'd said all day.
The doctor wrote something on his clipboard. "That's okay. Sometimes it takes time to understand our feelings. Especially after something as big as this."
They left the hospital at 11:47 PM. Adrian knew the exact time because he'd been watching the clock, waiting for the big hand to reach twelve so it would be midnight. But they left early.
His grandmother drove. His grandmother's car smelled different from his father's. More like flowers and less like coffee.
His mother was in the passenger seat, staring out the window without saying anything. She had stopped crying, but her eyes were still red.
Adrian was in the back seat, watching the city lights go by. Red lights, green lights, yellow lights. All flashing in patterns.
"Adrian, you're going to stay with me for a few days," his grandmother said, looking at him in the mirror. "In Seattle. While your mom... takes care of some things."
"What things?"
No one answered.
They drove in silence for a long time. Adrian counted the traffic lights. One, two, three, four. When they got to twelve, he gave up.
"Grandma," he said after a while. "When is Dad coming back?"
The car lurched. His grandmother had turned the steering wheel a little too far. She corrected herself quickly.
"Adrian..." his mother began, her voice hoarse from crying. "Your dad isn't coming back. Do you remember what the doctor said?"
"He said he died."
"Yes."
"Like Nemo."
His mother made that sound again—the half-sob—and his grandmother reached out to squeeze his shoulder.
Adrian looked out the window again. He processed the information. His dad was dead. The dead don't come back. It was simple logic.
But something in his brain—something new, something that hadn't been there before the park—told him there was more to understand. That death wasn't just "going away." It was permanent. It was final. It was a change that couldn't be undone.
And still, he couldn't feel what he was supposed to feel.
"Okay," he said finally.
And that word—that single, quiet word—made his mother cry harder than she had all day.
That night, Adrian slept in his grandmother's guest room. The bed was very large, and the sheets smelled of fabric softener that wasn't the kind they used at home.
He lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling.
In the next room, he could hear his mother crying. She cried and cried and cried, and Adrian didn't know how to make her stop.
He didn't know how to tell her that he was okay.
He didn't know how to tell her that he didn't understand why everyone was so sad.
He didn't know how to tell her that something inside him felt... different. Like a part of him was far away, watching everything from some quiet place where nothing really mattered.
Whatever happens, happens.
The words appeared in his head again. He didn't know exactly what they meant. But they felt... true. Like they were an important truth that he wasn't yet big enough to grasp.
Adrian closed his eyes.
For a moment—just a moment—he saw his dad's face. The crooked smile. The kind eyes.
And he felt that hole in his chest grow a little bigger.
But then the feeling faded, swallowed by that strange calm that had settled over him since the park.
And Adrian Matthew Cole, five years and four hours old, fell asleep without crying.
Which was wrong.
But he didn't know why.