Chapter 6 - Choosing Herself Again
Rehabilitation was not inspiring.
It was painful, slow, humiliating work.
The first time Marcus helped me sit upright with both legs lowered, I nearly fainted.
“Breathe,” he said.
“I am breathing.”
“You’re holding your breath.”
“My ribs hurt.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Marcus nodded.
“You’re right. I don’t. But I know what happens when fear decides the next movement.”
I gripped the edge of the therapy table.
“And what happens?”
“You stop before your body does.”
He waited until the room stopped spinning.
“Ready?”
“No.”
“Good. Let’s begin.”
For two weeks, progress came in inches.
Transfer from bed to wheelchair.
Wheelchair to therapy table.
Bending one knee by five degrees.
Then ten.
Then fifteen.
Emma attended whenever school allowed.
She decorated my walker with purple ribbons.
“It looks ridiculous,” I said.
“It looks powerful,” she replied.
Rachel laughed from the corner.
On the forty-third day after the crash, the casts were replaced with braces.
My legs looked thin and unfamiliar.
I stared at the scars.
Marcus crouched beside the parallel bars.
“Today, we stand.”
“I’m not ready.”
“You’ve been cleared.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” he agreed. “It isn’t.”
He positioned the wheelchair between the bars.
“Hands here. Lean forward. Push through your arms.”
“What if my legs collapse?”
“They might shake.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I won’t let you fall.”
The sentence reminded me of every promise Caleb had broken.
Marcus seemed to understand my hesitation.
“You do not have to trust the room,” he said. “Trust the equipment. Trust the plan. Trust the work you’ve already done.”
I placed my hands on the bars.
My arms trembled.
“One,” Marcus said.
Rachel stood near the wall, holding her breath.
“Two.”
Emma clasped both hands beneath her chin.
“Three.”
I pushed upward.
Pain shot through my knees and hips.
A sound escaped my throat.
For several seconds, I could not tell whether I was standing or falling.
Then Marcus said, “Look up.”
I raised my head.
I was upright.
My legs shook violently, but they held.
Emma began crying.
“You’re standing!”
“Don’t distract her,” Marcus said, though he was smiling.
I lasted seven seconds.
Then twelve.
Then twenty-one.
The same number of days I had waited for Caleb.
But now the number belonged to me.
While my body healed, Dana investigated the finances.
Caleb and Victor Lang had used my trust money to cover losses from a failed property development. They had falsified documents to obtain additional loans and moved money between accounts to hide the debt.
Victor agreed to cooperate with investigators.
In exchange for reduced charges, he turned over emails.
One message from Caleb had been sent the night of my accident.
Rebecca is in surgery. Move the remaining trust funds before she gets access to anything.
Another had been sent three days later.
When she comes home, I’ll handle her. She won’t question the paperwork.
Dana read the messages to me in a private conference room.
I felt no shock.
Only confirmation.
“He thought I was stupid.”
“No,” Dana said. “He knew you were capable. That’s why he worked so hard to keep you dependent.”
The district attorney added fraud and forgery charges to the assault case.
Caleb eventually accepted a plea agreement that included jail time, probation, restitution, and mandatory intervention counseling. The court prohibited unsupervised contact with Emma.
When Dana told me, I asked only one question.
“Will Emma have to testify?”
“No.”
Relief mattered more than punishment.
Six months after the accident, I moved into Rachel’s guesthouse.
It was small: one bedroom, a narrow kitchen, and a living room with windows facing the garden.
It was also the first home I had entered without wondering whether Caleb approved.
I began working remotely for a local accounting firm.
My former supervisor, Linda Park, interviewed me by video.
“You’ve been out of the profession for eleven years,” she said.
“I know.”
“Software has changed.”
“I’ve completed two certification courses since leaving rehabilitation.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“While recovering from bilateral femur fractures?”
“I had time.”
Linda smiled.
“The Rebecca Collins I hired fifteen years ago never waited for permission.”
I looked at the name on her old file.
Collins.
My maiden name.
“I’m trying to remember her.”
“Start Monday.”
The work was part-time at first.
I reviewed accounts, corrected records, and helped small businesses understand where their money had gone.
There was comfort in numbers.
They did not raise their voices.
They did not rewrite the past.
They either balanced or they did not.
One rainy evening, Emma sat at the kitchen table doing homework while I prepared dinner with one hand on my cane.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Do you still love Dad?”
The knife stopped against the cutting board.
“I loved who I thought he was.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No.”
“Does he love us?”
I set the knife down.
“I think your father confuses love with ownership.”
Emma frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“He believes caring about someone gives him the right to control them. It doesn’t.”
“Do I have to hate him?”
“No.”
She looked relieved.
“You’re allowed to feel whatever you feel. You can love someone and still know they are not safe to be around.”
“Do you hate him?”
I thought about the hospital room, the stolen money, and the years of shrinking myself to keep him calm.
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to carry him that way anymore.”
Three months later, I walked across the rehabilitation room without assistance.
Marcus stood at the far end.
Rachel and Emma waited behind him.
Twenty feet.
My first step was stiff.
The second was worse.
By the fourth, sweat covered my back.
“Don’t look at the floor,” Marcus said.
“I need to see where I’m stepping.”
“You know where the floor is.”
I raised my eyes.
At fifteen feet, my right knee buckled.
Marcus moved forward.
I lifted one hand.
“Wait.”
My leg steadied.
I took another step.
Then another.
When I reached Emma, she wrapped her arms around my waist.
“You crossed the whole room.”
I looked back at the empty space behind me.
May you like
“Yes,” I said.
“I did.”
