Chapter 5 - The Night Caleb Tried to Stand
Victor Hale was found two days later.
He didn't deny altering the records.
He denied everything else.
“I was protecting you,” he told me.
We sat across from each other in my library.
“By hiding Bennett's report?”
“You were psychologically destroyed.”
“My wife had just died.”
“Exactly.”
“So you decided I shouldn't know I might walk again?”
Hale looked uncomfortable.
“Thomas Bennett was proposing an experimental rehabilitation theory.”
“One that appears to have been correct.”
“He couldn't prove it.”
“You didn't let him.”
Silence.
I leaned forward.
“Who paid you?”
His eyes flickered.
That was enough.
Marco noticed too.
“Who?”
Hale stood.
“I think we're finished.”
Marco blocked the door.
I raised one hand.
“Let him leave.”
Marco looked surprised.
So did Hale.
I smiled without warmth.
“Eight years ago, you convinced me I was powerless.”
I glanced at my legs.
“You won't make that mistake twice.”
After Hale left, Marco began following the financial trail.
I went back to rehabilitation.
Weeks passed.
Then came the night everything changed.
Nathan fitted braces around my legs.
“Hands on the bars.”
I gripped them.
Lily stood ten feet away.
Grace beside her.
Ethan was filming despite pretending he wasn't.
Nathan looked at me.
“We're attempting weight-bearing. Nothing more.”
“I know.”
“Do not try to walk.”
“I know.”
“Caleb.”
“I heard you.”
He locked the braces.
“Ready?”
No.
“Yes.”
Nathan and two therapists lifted me.
My arms shook.
My legs screamed with sensations I hadn't felt in years.
For the first time since Audrey died, I was upright.
Not standing independently.
But upright.
Lily's eyes became enormous.
“Whoa.”
I looked at her.
“Don't.”
“You're really tall.”
“Lily.”
“What?”
I laughed.
And then my right knee activated.
Nathan froze.
“Hold.”
My left leg trembled.
“Caleb, don't force it.”
But something had changed.
I could feel pressure.
Floor.
Weight.
My own body.
My eyes burned.
Lily whispered:
“One step.”
Nathan immediately said, “No.”
I looked at him.
“One.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Doctor One Hundred,” Lily said.
He glanced at her.
She pointed at me.
“He's going to do it anyway.”
Nathan sighed.
“I know.”
With both hands gripping the bars, I shifted my weight.
My right foot dragged forward.
Six inches.
Everyone stopped breathing.
Then my left foot moved.
Not cleanly.
Not gracefully.
But it moved.
I collapsed into the therapists' arms.
Grace cried out.
Nathan caught me.
“Chair!”
They lowered me back down.
I was shaking.
Lily ran forward.
“You walked!”
“Two terrible steps.”
“Still counts.”
Ethan lowered his phone.
“Mr. Marino…”
I looked at him.
The teenager was crying.
So was Grace.
Even Marco had turned away.
Nathan crouched in front of me.
“This doesn't mean you're cured.”
“I know.”
“This could take years.”
“I know.”
“You may always need assistance.”
“I know.”
He smiled.
“But you walked.”
I looked toward Audrey's garden.
May you like
“Yes.”
For the first time in eight years, the future no longer looked like something happening without me.
