Chapter 3: The Awakening

Linda returned breathless, clutching the items to her chest like they were contraband. She handed Betty the heating pad, the towels, and the bottle of olive oil.

Betty took the oil. She didn’t hesitate. She poured a small pool of the golden liquid into her cupped palm and began rubbing her hands together furiously. The sound was sharp—swish, swish, swish—until the friction generated heat.

Then, she began.

I watched, expecting a standard massage. I’ve hired the best physical therapists in the world for my mother. I know what therapy looks like. It looks like kneading dough. It looks clinical.

This was different.

Betty didn’t knead. She used her thumbs to press into specific, hidden trigger points near the knee. She held the pressure, her small face scrunching with effort, then traced a swift, firm line down the shin bone.

Press. Hold. Release. Trace.

She moved with a hypnotic rhythm. It wasn’t random. It was a sequence. She started humming a low tune. It wasn’t a pop song. It was something old, a melody that sounded like it belonged in a trench or a field hospital. A lullaby for the wounded.

Ten minutes passed. Then twenty.

The library was silent except for the rain lashing against the glass and that soft, rhythmic humming. I shifted in my leather chair. The skepticism was creeping back in, cold and heavy.

What am I doing? I thought. I’m a grown man watching a ten-year-old rub salad dressing on my dying mother’s legs. This is madness. It’s grief disguised as hope.

I looked at the clock. It had been thirty minutes. Nothing was happening. Margaret was still staring at the painting. Her face was slack.

I cleared my throat. I was about to speak. I was about to say, “Okay, Betty, that’s enough. Thank you for trying, but we should let her rest.” It was sweet, but it was futile.

I opened my mouth.

“Stop!”

The sound was like grinding gears. It was raspy, broken, and loud.

I jumped, my heart hammering against my ribs. I looked around wildy.

Margaret’s head had moved. She wasn’t looking at the ship anymore. Her chin was tucked tight against her chest. She was looking down. She was looking at Betty.

“Mom?” I whispered, standing up slowly. “Did you say something?”

Margaret’s lips were dry and cracked. She licked them slowly. She lifted her eyes to mine. For six months, those eyes had been foggy windows. Now? They were sharp. They were present.

“I said,” Margaret whispered, each word a struggle, “tell the girl… I can feel it.”

The room spun. I gripped the back of the armchair to steady myself. Margaret hadn’t spoken a clear, coherent sentence in weeks.

Betty didn’t stop. She didn’t gasp. She didn’t even smile. She just kept working her thumbs along the calf muscle, digging in deeper.

“She feels it,” Betty said quietly to me, not breaking her rhythm. “The nerves are waking up. They are angry because they’ve been asleep for a long time. But they are awake.”

I walked over and stood directly behind Betty. My hands were shaking. “What happens next?” I asked. My voice sounded foreign to my own ears.

Betty wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead with her upper arm. She looked tired, but her eyes were burning with intensity.

“Now,” Betty said, “we have to convince her brain that her feet are still part of her.”

She looked up at me, the billionaire, with zero intimidation.

“But I can’t do it alone, Sir. Grandma Alice said the patient needs a reason to move. The body won’t commute to work if there’s no job waiting. You have to give her a reason.”

Chapter 4: The Rose Garden

“A reason?” I asked.

“A memory,” Betty said. “Grandma used to ask the soldiers to think about dancing at their wedding or running to home base. What did she love to do, Sir? Before the chair?”

I looked out the window at the sprawling grounds of the estate, drenched in gray rain.

“She loved her roses,” I said, the memory hitting me hard. “She used to walk the garden every morning at 6:00 AM, pruning the roses. She was obsessive about them.”

Betty nodded. She placed her hands flat on the soles of Margaret’s feet.

“Tell her about the roses,” Betty commanded. “Tell her exactly how they smell. Tell her about the thorns. Make her feel the grass under her shoes.”

I felt foolish. I was a man of numbers, of concrete facts. But my mother was looking at me, waiting.

I cleared my throat. “Mom,” I started, leaning in close. “Remember the yellow Peace roses? The ones you planted by the south wall?”

Betty pressed her thumbs hard into the arch of Margaret’s foot.

“Describe them,” Betty whispered fiercely.

“They smell like… like lemon and honey,” I said, my voice getting stronger. “And the dew. Remember the dew? It was always heavy on them in the morning. Your gardening shoes would get soaked. You hated getting your socks wet.”

Margaret’s eyes fluttered. A tiny, almost invisible twitch rippled through her left big toe.

Betty saw it. I saw it.

“Again,” Betty said, her voice firm. “Keep walking her through the garden.”

For the next hour, I narrated a walk through a garden that didn’t exist anymore in the winter cold, while the maid’s daughter manipulated the muscles of the woman who used to own this town.

When Betty finally sat back, wiping her oily hands on a towel, Margaret was exhausted. But she wasn’t staring at the wall. She was asleep, her breathing deep and rhythmic.

Robert looked at Betty. The girl was packing her things. She put the oil away. She folded the towel. She picked up the heavy book.

“We have to go now,” Linda whispered, grabbing Betty’s hand, looking terrified again. “Thank you, Mr. Harrison. We are so sorry for the trouble.”

“Tomorrow,” I said.

Linda froze near the door. “Sir?”

“Tomorrow,” I repeated. I looked at Betty. “Can you come back tomorrow? Same time.”

Betty looked at her mother, then at the billionaire. She nodded once. “Yes, Sir. But she will be sore. She needs to drink a lot of water tonight. I’ll make sure of it.”

I watched them leave—the maid and the little girl with the blonde ponytail. They walked out into the rain.

I turned back to my mother. For the first time in a long time, the silence in the room didn’t feel heavy. It felt like the silence before a sunrise.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. I dialed my executive assistant.

“Cancel my meetings for tomorrow afternoon,” I said.

“All of them, Sir?” the assistant asked, surprised. “Even the merger discussion with the Japanese firm?”

“All of them,” I said. “I have an appointment in the library.”

I hung up. The library smelled different now. For years, it had smelled of dust and old money. Now, it smelled of camphor, heated rice, and olive oil.

Three weeks passed.

Every afternoon at 4:00 PM, like clockwork, the heavy oak doors would creak open. Betty would walk in, her backpack slung over one shoulder, the heavy leather book tucked under her arm. Linda would follow, carrying a tray of warm water and fresh towels.

They had a rhythm. I was part of it, too. The billionaire who used to spend his afternoons shouting at CEOs in Tokyo or London now sat on a velvet ottoman, his suit jacket discarded on a chair, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

“Hold the ankle, Sir,” Betty instructed one afternoon.

I obeyed. I cupped my mother’s heel. It felt fragile, like a bird’s bone, but it was warmer than it had been a month ago.

“She’s fighting today,” Betty said, her eyes focused on Margaret’s calf muscle. “The muscles are tight. They’re remembering the anger.”

I looked at my mother. Margaret was awake. Her eyes were clear, watching the girl work. She couldn’t speak much—just a word here or there—but her face was no longer a mask of stone. It had expressions. Right now, she looked annoyed.

“Anger?” I asked.

“Grandma Alice said the body holds on to things we don’t say,” Betty explained. She dipped her hands into the warm water, then dried them vigorously to create friction. “Soldiers who saw bad things… their legs would turn to concrete. Not because of a bullet, but because they didn’t want to walk back into the fight. Or they didn’t want to walk home and face the quiet.”

She began to work on Margaret’s shin, using the heel of her hand in a rolling motion.

“Your mother is angry she’s stuck,” Betty said matter-of-factly. “So, her legs are on strike. We have to negotiate.”

I let out a short, dry laugh. “I’ve negotiated billion-dollar mergers. I never thought I’d be negotiating with a shinbone.”

“It’s harder,” Betty said without smiling. “Shinbones don’t care about money.”

She stopped moving and placed her palm flat on Margaret’s knee.

“Tell her about the lake house,” Betty whispered.

I cleared my throat. This was part of the Protocol now—the mapping. Betty insisted that nerves needed a destination.

“Mom,” I said, leaning in. “Remember the dock at Lake Louise? The wood was always hot in July. You used to sit on the edge and dip your toes in the water to cool off. The water was so cold it made your teeth ache.”

Margaret’s eyes widened slightly. She remembered.

“Push for the water,” Betty commanded softly. “Find the water.”

I watched my mother’s foot. It lay limp against the footrest.

“Come on, Mom,” I whispered. “Just a dip. Just reach for the water.”

For a long minute, nothing happened. The grandfather clock in the corner ticked loudly. The wind rattled the windowpanes.

Then, the big toe on her right foot curled.

It wasn’t a spasm. It wasn’t a twitch. It was a deliberate, slow curl, like a finger beckoning.

“I saw it!” I gasped.

“She found the water,” Betty said, a small smile touching her lips. She didn’t celebrate. She didn’t cheer. She just nodded like a mechanic who had successfully tightened a bolt.

“Good. Now we rest.”

She covered Margaret’s legs with the warm towels. I sat back, wiping sweat from my forehead. I felt more exhausted than I did after a board meeting.

“You’re incredible, Betty,” I said.

Betty shrugged. She opened her book and began writing notes in the margin with a pencil.

“I’m just following the map,” she said. “Grandma did the hard work.”

“Tell me about her,” I said. “Alice.”

Betty looked up. “She was small. Smaller than me, almost. But she could lift a grown man. She smelled like peppermint and rubbing alcohol. She had a scar on her arm from a piece of shrapnel in Korea.”

“She sounds tough.”

“She was,” Betty said. “But she cried a lot at night. She thought I was asleep, but I heard her. She said the hardest part of healing people wasn’t the blood. It was the giving up. She said most people die long before their hearts stop beating because they just decide to sit down and stay there.”

I looked at my mother. Had she decided to sit down? Had I let her?

“Grandma said,” Betty continued, closing the book, “that you have to give them a reason to stand up that is bigger than the reason to sit down.”

Suddenly, the library door burst open.

It wasn’t Linda.

I turned, expecting to see a servant with tea. Instead, I saw a man in a charcoal gray suit carrying a leather medical bag. He was tall, silver-haired, and radiated an air of expensive authority.

Dr. Evans.

And behind him stood my sister, Clara. Clara lived in New York. She hadn’t visited in six months. She looked horrified.

“Robert!” Clara said, her voice echoing in the large room. “What on earth is going on here?”

Chapter 5: The Conflict

I stood up quickly, shielding Betty with my body instinctively. “Clara, I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Obviously,” Clara snapped. She walked into the room, her high heels clicking sharply on the hardwood like gunfire. She gestured at the scene—the towels, the bowl of murky water, the maid’s daughter sitting on the floor with a dusty book.

“I called Dr. Evans because you stopped answering his emails,” Clara said, her voice trembling with indignation. “He told me you canceled the monthly review. Robert, look at this! It’s… it’s primitive.”

Dr. Evans stepped forward. He adjusted his glasses, looking down his nose at Betty.

“Mr. Harrison,” Dr. Evans said, his voice smooth and patronizing. “I was concerned. When patients withdraw from standard care, it’s usually a sign of psychological distress. I see you found an alternative.”

He said the word “alternative” like it was a dirty word. Like it was a disease.

“We’re making progress,” I said firmly. “More progress in three weeks than you made in six months, Doctor.”

Dr. Evans sighed a long, weary sigh. “Robert, please. I know you’re grieving the loss of the woman she used to be. But this…” He gestured to Betty. “This is a child. And looking at the supplies—warm water and olive oil? This is medieval.”

“She moved her toe,” I said.

“On-command spasms,” Dr. Evans dismissed instantly. “Involuntary nerve firing. It’s common in atrophy cases. It gives families false hope. It’s cruel, actually.”

He looked at Betty. The girl shrank back, clutching her book.

“Young lady,” Evans said sternly. “You shouldn’t be here. You are practicing medicine without a license. Do you know you could get your mother in very serious trouble? Do you want your mother to go to jail?”

Betty stood up. She hugged the book to her chest. She looked tiny next to the doctor, but she didn’t back away.

“I’m not practicing medicine,” Betty said quietly.

“Oh?” Dr. Evans raised an eyebrow. “Then what do you call this?”

“I’m reminding her she’s alive,” Betty said.

Clara groaned. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Robert! This is insanity. You’ve hired the housekeeper’s kid to play witch doctor. Do you know how this looks? If the Board finds out you’re neglecting Mom’s medical care for… for voodoo?”

“It’s not voodoo,” I growled. “Her name is Betty. Her grandmother was Alice Miller.”

Dr. Evans paused. The arrogance faltered for a split second. “Miller? The Army nurse from the VA hospital?”

“You knew her?” I asked.

“I knew of her,” Evans said stiffly. “She was a legend in the county, yes. But she was also known for being unorthodox. And she wasn’t a doctor. She was a nurse. A nurse who didn’t know when to accept that a case was closed.”

“She made people walk,” Betty said. Her voice was trembling, but she pushed the words out. “She made Mr. Henderson walk. He was in a chair for ten years. She fixed him.”

“Anecdotal evidence,” Evans waved a hand. “Stories told by country folk. Look, Robert, I’m here to do an assessment. I need to check her vitals and the progression of the muscle decay. Please clear the room.”

I looked at Betty. She looked terrified now. The authority of the adults, the big words, the threat to her mother—it was weighing on her.

“Go to the kitchen, Betty,” I said gently.

“But Sir,” Betty whispered. “We aren’t done. We have to do the cool-down stretches. If we don’t, her tendons will snap back like rubber bands. It will hurt her tomorrow.”

“I said go!” Clara shouted.

Betty flinched. She grabbed her backpack and ran out of the room.

I felt a surge of anger I hadn’t felt in years. I turned to my sister. “Don’t you ever raise your voice in this house again, Clara.”

Clara crossed her arms. “Someone has to be the adult here. You’re losing it, Bobby. Mom is gone. She’s been gone since the stroke. You’re just playing with a corpse.”

“Get out,” I said.

“What?”

“Get out. Both of you.”

“Robert, be reasonable,” Dr. Evans said, stepping toward the wheelchair. “I have a duty of care to Margaret. I cannot leave until I have examined her. If you refuse, I will be forced to document that you are obstructing medical treatment. That could have legal implications for your Power of Attorney.”

It was a threat. A polite, legal threat.

I clenched my jaw. I looked at my mother. Margaret was looking at Dr. Evans. Her eyes were narrowed. Her mouth was working, trying to form shapes.

“Go ahead,” I said, defeated. “Examine her.”

I walked to the window and stared out at the gray sky. I felt like a traitor. Behind me, I heard the doctor unpacking his bag, the cold click of metal instruments, the crinkle of sanitary paper.

“Hello, Margaret,” Dr. Evans’ voice was loud. The way people speak to the deaf or the simple. “I’m just going to move your legs a bit. Tell me if it hurts. Oh, wait. You can’t tell me. Well, I’ll be gentle.”

I flinched. She can hear you, I thought. She understands everything.

“Significant stiffness,” Evans muttered. “The joints are locking up. Clara, look at this. The range of motion is worse than last time. I told you.”

“He’s making it worse,” I thought.

“It’s not worse!” I spun around. “She was loose before. She was warm. You came in here and froze the room with your negativity, and she locked up.”

“Robert, physiology doesn’t respond to ‘vibes’,” Evans said dryly.

He took a reflex hammer and tapped Margaret’s knee.

Nothing happened.

He tapped again. Harder.

Nothing.

“See,” Evans said, straightening up. “Zero reflex response. The pathways are dead, Robert. The movement you saw was a phantom spasm. It’s over. Stop tormenting this child and stop tormenting your mother. Put her back on the palliative care plan. Keep her sedated. Keep her comfortable.”

Margaret made a sound. It was a low, guttural groan.

“It’s okay, Mom,” Clara said, patting her shoulder condescendingly. “We know it’s hard.”

Margaret’s hand—the left one—lifted off the armrest. It shook violently. It reached out.

Not toward Clara. Not toward me.

She was reaching toward the door where Betty had run.

“She wants the girl,” I said.

“She wants water,” Evans corrected.

“No,” I said. I walked back to the center of the room. I looked at the famous doctor and my wealthy sister.

“You’re done. Pack up.”

“Robert, I said—”

“PACK UP!” I roared. The sound echoed off the mahogany shelves. “You looked at her chart. You looked at her reflexes. But you didn’t look at her. You talked about her like she’s furniture.”

I pointed to the door. “Leave. Now.”

Dr. Evans snapped his bag shut. His face was red. “I will be filing a report, Mr. Harrison. This is negligence.”

“File it,” I said.

Clara grabbed her purse. “You’re making a mistake, Bobby. A massive mistake. When she gets hurt, it’s on you.”

They left. The heavy doors slammed shut.

The room was quiet again, but the good energy was gone. The smell of camphor was overpowered by the doctor’s cologne and the scent of fear.

I walked over to my mother. She looked exhausted. The light in her eyes had dimmed. She looked small again.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

I sat there for a long time holding her hand. The doubt was creeping in. Was Evans right? Was I just a grieving son clinging to a fairy tale told by a ten-year-old? Was I actually hurting her?

The door creaked open.

I didn’t look up. “I said leave me alone.”

“I forgot my book.”

It was Betty. She crept into the room. Her eyes were red and puffy. She had been crying. She walked over to the side table and picked up the heavy leather journal. She clutched it to her chest.

She looked at me, then at Margaret.

“Is she okay?” Betty asked.

“The doctor says she’s getting worse,” I said heavily. “He says the pathways are dead.”

Betty looked at Margaret’s legs. Then she looked at me with a fierceness that startled me.

“Doctors look for roads,” Betty said. “Grandma said when the road is blown up, you have to build a bridge. We aren’t done building the bridge yet.”

“They’re going to try to stop us, Betty,” I said. “They have lawyers. They have courts.”

“Do you have lawyers?” Betty asked.

I blinked. A slow smile spread across my face.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I have lawyers. I have an army of them.”

“Good,” Betty said. She put the book back down on the table. She didn’t leave. She rolled up her sleeves.

“Because we didn’t do the cool down,” she said. “And if we don’t do it, she will hurt tomorrow.”

She walked over to the wheelchair. She didn’t ask for permission this time. She placed her hands on Margaret’s ankles.

“I’m sorry about the bad man,” Betty told Margaret softly. “He’s gone now. It’s just us. Let’s finish.”

I watched them. The doubt didn’t vanish completely, but it retreated into the shadows. I realized then that the conflict wasn’t just about medicine. It was about control. Dr. Evans wanted to control the decline. Betty wanted to unleash the fight.

I took my jacket off again. I loosened my tie. I sat back down on the ottoman.

“What do I do?” I asked.

“Hold her hand,” Betty said. “And tell her about the roses again. The bad man made her forget the smell.”

Chapter 6: The Invitation

November turned into December. The rain turned into snow.

The estate, usually quiet, was now filled with a strange energy. It wasn’t a happy energy yet. It was the energy of a fight. It was the energy of a boxing gym before the title match.

The library had changed. The expensive Persian rugs were rolled up in the corner. In their place were two heavy wooden dining chairs placed back-to-back. They looked out of place among the leather books and oil paintings. They looked like tools.

Betty looked tired. She was ten years old, but she had dark circles under her eyes. Every day after school, she came to the house. She worked on Margaret’s legs for two hours. Then she did her homework at the kitchen table while her mother, Linda, finished cleaning.

One Thursday, I walked in and found Betty sitting on the floor rubbing her own wrists.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

Betty jumped up. “Yes, Sir. I’m fine.”

“Your hands hurt?” I observed.

“Grandma Alice said the healer takes a little bit of the pain,” Betty said, hiding her hands behind her back. “It’s just a transfer. It goes away.”

I felt a pang of guilt. I was a billionaire. I could buy hospitals. Yet here was a child wearing secondhand sneakers absorbing my family’s pain.

“We can take a break today,” I said.

“No,” Betty said firmly. “Muscles have short memories. If we skip a day, they forget a week.”

She turned to Margaret. “Ready, Ma’am?”

Margaret nodded. She looked different now. She wasn’t just a passenger in her own body anymore. She was a participant. She had gained weight. Her color was better. But she still hadn’t stood up.

News travels fast in a small town, but it travels faster in the world of high society.

A week before Christmas, a thick, cream-colored envelope arrived. It wasn’t for me. It was for Margaret.

I opened it in the kitchen. Betty was there eating a peanut butter sandwich that Linda had made her. They were taking a break before the afternoon session.

“What is it?” Betty asked.

I read the card, my jaw tightening.

“It’s the Foundation Gala,” I said. “My father started it. It’s the biggest night of the year for the company. Investors, press, the Board.”

I tossed the card on the table. “Clara sent it. She’s organizing it this year.”

I picked up the handwritten note attached to the back.

Robert – The rumors are getting out of hand. Stockholders are saying Mom is incapacitated, or worse. She needs to make an appearance. I’ve arranged a private booth. She can stay in the chair, wave, smile, and we can leave. If she doesn’t show, the Board is going to call for a vote of no confidence in your leadership as her proxy. Don’t be stubborn. – Clara

“They want her to be a prop,” I said bitterly. “They want to wheel her out, show she’s alive, and wheel her back.”

“When is it?” Betty asked.

“Christmas Eve,” I said. “Two weeks.”

“Two weeks,” Betty repeated. She looked at her sandwich. She took a bite, thinking.

“We can’t go,” I said. “She’s not ready for a crowd, and I won’t let them parade her around in that chair like an invalid. It would break her spirit.”

“She shouldn’t go in the chair,” Betty said.

I looked at her. “Betty, she hasn’t stood yet. She can’t walk into a ballroom.”

“She can’t walk far,” Betty corrected. “But she doesn’t have to walk far. How far is the door to the stage? Maybe twenty feet?”

I thought about the layout of the Grand Hotel ballroom. “Twenty feet. Maybe thirty.”

“That’s roughly ten steps,” Betty calculated. “Maybe twelve if she takes small ones.”

“Betty, no. It’s too risky. If she falls in front of everyone…”

“She won’t fall,” Betty said. She put her sandwich down. “Grandma Alice prepared a soldier for a medal ceremony once. He had no knees. She braced him up. He walked across the stage, saluted, and walked off. He collapsed backstage, but nobody saw that. They only saw him walk.”

“Why does it matter?” I asked. “Why push it?”

Betty looked me in the eye. “Because she’s proud, Sir. You told me that. She’s a proud woman. If she goes in the chair, she feels small. If she walks, even just a little… she wins. And you win. And the bad doctor loses.”

I looked at the invitation. I imagined the scene. Dr. Evans smugly standing by. Clara managing the “invalid.” The pity in the eyes of my competitors.

Then I imagined my mother. The fire that had returned to her eyes.

I walked out of the kitchen and into the library. Margaret was reading a magazine. She was holding it herself.

“Mom,” I said. “Clara wants you at the Gala.”

Margaret stiffened. She lowered the magazine. “No,” she said clearly. “No chair. Not in public.”

“What if you didn’t use the chair?” I asked.

Margaret looked at me.

“Betty thinks you can do twenty feet,” I said. “She thinks we can train for just that walk. Just enough to get to the podium.”

Margaret looked at her legs. She looked at the walker they had started using yesterday.

“Just for standing… twenty feet?” she asked.

“It will be the hardest thing you’ve ever done,” I said. “It will hurt. You might fail.”

Margaret set her jaw. The steel was back.

“Call Clara,” Margaret said. “Tell her I’m coming. And tell her… to save me a dance.”

The next fourteen days were hell. There was no other word for it.

The library became a boot camp. Betty was relentless. She stopped being the sweet girl with the book and became a taskmaster.

“Lift again! Look up! If you look at your feet, you fall. Look at the horizon!”

Margaret cried. She screamed in frustration. She threw a towel at me once. But she never quit.

Betty was there every step. She measured the distance. She marked twenty feet on the library rug with masking tape.

“This is the stage,” Betty said. “You start here. The podium is here. Robert is on your left. A cane in your right hand. Not a walker. Walkers look sick. A cane looks elegant.”

They practiced until Margaret’s legs shook so bad she couldn’t stand. Then they iced them. Then they did it again.

Three days before the Gala, disaster struck.

Margaret woke up with a swollen ankle. It wasn’t a fracture, but it was angry.

“It’s inflammation,” Betty said, looking at the red puffiness. “We pushed too hard.”

“That’s it,” I said, burying my face in my hands. “It’s over. We can’t do it.”

“We can,” Betty said. She opened her grandmother’s book. “We just have to change the tactic. No more walking practice. Only rest, ice, elevation, and compression. We save every ounce of energy for the night.”

“She won’t have the strength,” I argued. “She’ll lose the muscle memory.”

“She has the strength,” Betty said. “Muscles don’t forget in three days. She needs to believe she can do it. That’s the fuel now.”

Betty turned to Margaret. “Ma’am, you are going to rest for three days. You will visualize the walk. Every step. In your mind. Can you do that?”

Margaret nodded. She looked at her swollen ankle, then at her son.

“Get my dress ready,” Margaret said.