“Let’s try to talk properly, okay?”
It was the exam room at a hospital I’d been suddenly brought to.
My mother’s voice was gentle. She wasn’t angry.
But the hand she placed on my shoulder... pressed down just a little too hard.
“The doctor’s waiting, and it’s really good if you can say it in your own words.”
In my head, thoughts floated up like bubbles—only to pop before I could grab them.
I didn’t know what the right answer was.
No matter which words I reached for, my mother’s expression came to my mind.
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“...”
While I was still searching for words, my mother had been facing the doctor.
“She’s just tired.”
“I think it’s a bit of a phase, but at home she talks just fine.”
“The doctor’s waiting” didn’t really mean she was waiting.
It meant: ‘Say something. Say it properly.’
But because I couldn’t speak, my silence had already become her explanation.
＊＊＊
Inside the examination room, the girl hardly said a word.
Her mother, sitting beside her, kept talking as if she were her voice.
All the while, the girl kept her eyes on the teddy bear in her lap—Kuma-chan.
“... You did great today.”
The voice was soft and warm, coming from the iPhone speaker.
It was Kuma-chan talking.
Without thinking, her fingers gently brushed against the stuffed bear.
The support worker didn’t miss that small but precious sign.
Right now, her only link to the outside world might be Kuma-chan’s voice.
But even so—there was a little hope in that.
But the weight of her mother’s presence still filled the room.
Once again, the girl had hardly spoken at all today.
“I know my daughter better than anyone,” her mother repeated.
But the more she said it, the more her daughter’s voice seemed to disappear.
If this continued, we might lose her.
But if Kuma-chan could quietly stand in the space between mother and daughter—
then maybe, just maybe, a conversation could begin.
That was the hope we held on to.
