One symptom can have countless explanations.
A cluster deserves attention.
A change from a child’s normal deserves attention.
And when something continues to bother you even after you’ve tried to explain it away, sometimes the safest choice is simply to have someone qualified check.
Not because every worry is an emergency.
Not because every instinct is correct.
Because occasionally, being wrong costs you an afternoon.
Waiting can cost much more.
Lydia put the bottle back in the cooler.
Then she zipped it closed and carried it toward the SUV.
I grabbed the beach bag beside her.
Neither of us said anything else about who had been right.
We didn’t need to.
Months later, what I remember most isn’t the doctor’s terminology or the monitor numbers.
I remember Finn asking for water before eleven in the morning.
I remember him sitting beside the cooler instead of running with the other kids.
