During our father’s party, my sister yanked my walking support from under my arm and left me sprawling on the paving. “Find somebody else to perform for,” she said while our cousin filmed. I was still trying to get upright when a guest stepped behind her, and the next thing he said made her turn.
Getting home meant crossing that terrace again, and Brianne still had the support I needed.
She held back until the second I leaned onto it.
Her fingers closed above mine, just under the black cuff, and she dragged the teal shaft sideways.
I reached after it before my leg gave out.
Then I was down.
My knee twisted under my body, and I couldn’t pull it free without sending pain through my hip.
For a few seconds, I stayed bent over my hands and tried to get enough breath to speak.
Jalen laughed before I managed it.
He made a choking sound, checked whether anyone else was laughing, then lifted his phone sideways.
Several relatives joined him.
Somebody clapped.
Dad kept moving food around the griddle with his spatula.
Mom adjusted the numeral candles atop the birthday tart, though they were already standing straight.
“Don’t move yet, Krystal.”
Aunt Gina knelt beside me and braced my upper back with her palm.
She asked whether I’d landed directly on my hip.
I couldn’t answer until she helped me shift my knee.
Brianne stood close enough to hear me sucking air through my teeth.
She held the crutch across her chest.
“Leave it,” she said to Gina. “She gets around FINE when nobody’s paying attention.”
Gina reached toward it anyway.
Brianne moved it farther away, as though her aunt had asked to borrow something expensive.
I kept looking at my sister’s face for a sign that the joke had gone wrong.
She was waiting for me to get up.
Eleven months back, a driver had hit my car and left me needing surgery on my hip.
The damage also affected the nerves in my left leg.
Some days I could place my foot exactly where I wanted.
Other days it wouldn’t hold me through a turn.
Brianne knew that.
She’d sat beside me while the surgeon explained why I needed support even when the pain eased.
She’d asked whether the weakness could happen without warning.
He’d answered her directly.
Now she tapped the crutch against her palm and looked toward Jalen’s phone.
“I saw you walking.”
Gina kept her palm against my upper back.
“You saw my therapy recording,” I said.
“With your own legs.”
“For seventeen seconds.”
Brianne gave a little laugh through her nose.
“Seventeen seconds is still WALKING.”
The recording had shown me moving between rails with a therapist close enough to catch me.
I’d sent it because I’d been pleased with myself.
Mom had forwarded it.
“You cut off the part where I had to sit,” I said.
“There’s always another part with you.”
Jalen moved sideways for a better view, and I turned my face away from his phone.
Gina rose just enough to reach toward the teal shaft a second time.
“She’s on the ground, Brianne.”
My sister raised the cuff beside her cheek.
“Dad gets a birthday, doesn’t he?”
The candles said sixty-seven, and Dad was staring at the food as though he couldn’t leave it.
“We couldn’t even get through lunch without THIS.”
I pressed my palm against the paving and tried to take some weight off Gina.
The cuff on my other crutch had twisted under me during the fall.
I couldn’t get it straight.
Mom finally turned.
“Maybe you weren’t ready for an outing.”
She said it in the same voice she’d used on the phone when she insisted I come.
She’d called repeatedly to check that I’d arranged a ride to Ventura.
She’d reminded me about the wallet I’d bought Dad.
Now the wallet was beside his tart, and she was suggesting that attending had been my mistake.
“You asked me to come,” I said.
“I didn’t ask you to overdo things.”
Gina looked at her sister.
Mom went back to the candles.
“I can go,” I said. “Just let me have it.”
Brianne leaned away before I’d finished.
“You can manage without the props for a minute.”
Then she started explaining my recovery to people who hadn’t visited me.
The appointments she’d supposedly rearranged her life around.
The bills our parents had supposedly paid.
The equipment everyone had supposedly had to buy because I wanted SPECIAL treatment.
My parents had stayed with me for four days.
Insurance covered most of the surgery, while my own savings paid what remained.
Gina drove me to therapy.
“I took her,” Gina said.
Brianne waved that away with the crutch.
“You’re not there all the time.”
“Neither are you.”
My sister turned toward the relatives instead of answering her.
Several nodded while she talked about how tired everyone was.
I could hear Jalen breathing through his nose behind the phone.
He’d stopped laughing, but the recording continued.
Dad scraped at a spot on the griddle.
“Dad.”
He lifted the spatula, then put it down again.
Brianne spoke before he did.
“All she has to do is get up.”
Gina pulled my other crutch out from behind a patio seat and guided my arm into its cuff.
My fingers slipped on the grip.
I wiped them against my dress and tried again.
Gina braced herself while I pushed up, and I reached standing with most of my weight against her.
Brianne tipped her head toward the open space in front of me.
“Go on, then.”
I tried to move my left foot closer beneath me.
My left leg gave way before my balance could shift.
Gina caught me hard under the arm.
Not again.
A chair dragged behind us, but nobody reached us before she’d pulled me back against her shoulder.
Brianne gave an exaggerated eye-roll.
“Right on cue.”
I had my mouth open to ask Dad again.
He was looking at us now.
Mom stood beside him with her fingers pressed against the edge of the tart’s box.
I closed my mouth.
“Gina, could you get us a ride?”
Her arm stayed around me while she reached into her pocket.
Brianne gestured at the exit door with the rubber tip.
“Find somebody else to perform for.”
Then she added, “And don’t bring this shit back here.”
Gina had barely unlocked her screen when a deep voice cut in from just behind Brianne.
“You need to hand that over.”
Jalen lowered his phone a little.
Brianne glanced back without moving the crutch.
“We’re having a family conversation.”
The guest moved into view beside her shoulder.
I knew his face right away, though seeing him at my father’s lunch made no sense at first.
Dr. Bosch had operated on my hip.
He’d been there when I first tried to move that foot afterward, and he’d seen the days when it wouldn’t move properly at all.
I’d never known that Dad knew him.
Brianne turned halfway toward him.
“She’ll have you carrying her next.”
He looked at Gina’s arm beneath mine.
Then his gaze shifted to the teal shaft in Brianne’s grip.
“Her legs WORK,” Brianne said. “Ask anyone.”
His hand came to rest on her shoulder, and she finally faced him.
“I’m the surgeon who operated on her. GIVE IT BACK.”
The black cuff
Brianne handed him the crutch.
She held it out by the rubber tip, so he had to take it sideways. Even surrender needed to inconvenience somebody.
I reached for the grip. He brought it within reach instead of making me stretch.
“Chair first,” he said.
Gina kept her arm beneath mine while he pulled a seat behind me. I lowered myself in pieces, with an undignified little grunt at the end.
Brianne opened her mouth.
“Don’t,” I said.
Dr. Bosch crouched far enough away that I could see his face without bending.
“Do you want me to help you here?”
“Yes.”
He asked about the pain and whether it had changed since I’d landed. I answered him. Brianne tried to supply an answer once.
He kept looking at me.
Gina took the other crutch from my hand. There was a crack beside the cuff’s attachment. She ran a finger near it, then stopped.
“You can’t lean on this.”
I wanted to say it would do. That was my usual contribution when people were inconvenienced by my leg: an offer to make the leg somebody else’s problem later.
I kept my hand off it.
Dr. Bosch said I needed to be checked after the fall. He didn’t pronounce me fine beside a birthday tart. He helped Gina work out how to get me downstairs without using the damaged crutch.
Dad stood by the griddle.
“Ashish,” he said, “I didn’t know she was your patient.”
“We know each other from walking,” Dr. Bosch said to me.
That explained the invitation. Dad could walk with a surgeon several mornings a week and still leave the subject of his daughter out of the conversation. Apparently I hadn’t come up between the weather and his knees.
Mom came toward us.
“Well, thank goodness you’re here.”
She touched Brianne’s elbow first.
“Now we can all stop making this worse.”
The far chair
Less than an hour earlier, Dad had moved my chair away from the terrace entrance.
“You’re sitting with us,” he’d said.
I’d pointed to the space near the door. Gina could get me out from there without moving people.
“No hiding today. I want both my girls beside me.”
He’d carried the chair to the far end, near his griddle, then cleared a path wide enough for my crutches. He’d even moved a chair leg that stuck out.
I’d thanked him.
Now I was back in that chair, with one working crutch across my knees.
Dad came over and put a hand on its shaft.
“Still like the color?”
I’d picked teal because the gray ones made me feel as though I should be waiting outside a government office.
“Yes.”
“We’ll sort the other one out.”
Brianne stood behind Mom. Neither of them offered to take the broken one from Gina.
Dad bent toward me.
“Can you manage to stay for the candles?”
There it was. I was thirty-six, and my father still knew how to make leaving his party sound like stealing his birthday.
“I need to get checked.”
“Of course. After that, if you feel up to it.”
He meant after the candles. I meant after the fall. We were close enough to touch and having separate conversations.
Gina held the damaged cuff where he could see it.
“Noel, she can’t use this.”
“I said we’ll sort it.”
His leather wallet sat beside the tart, open where he’d been examining the pockets before lunch. I’d chosen one like his old wallet, only without the split where his cards poked through.
He’d asked me to wait until the candles to give it to him properly, for a photograph.
I’d agreed. I’d even practiced standing long enough for a picture.
Mom reached down to brush dust off my dress.
I moved her hand away.
“Don’t fuss over that.”
“I’m trying to help.”
“Ask me what I need.”
She straightened up. Behind her, Brianne folded her arms.
Dad lifted the wallet and put it back beside the box, away from a patch of moisture.
I wanted him to take the chair next to me. I wanted the ordinary fatherly outrage I’d rehearsed in my head after every smaller thing Brianne had said that year.
He looked toward the guests instead.
“Let’s not have everybody standing around.”
Jalen still held his phone.
Mom turned to him.
“Delete that, sweetheart. We don’t need a record of a family misunderstanding.”
Seventeen seconds
“Stop recording,” I said to Jalen. “Don’t delete anything yet.”
His thumb moved. He turned the screen toward himself.
Brianne took a step in his direction.
“Don’t send that around.”
“I haven’t,” he said.
She had enjoyed an audience until the audience included somebody who wouldn’t laugh. Now we were all apparently under an obligation to protect her privacy.
Dr. Bosch stood beside my chair while Gina arranged the ride.
Brianne addressed him over my head.
“You understand why we’d be confused, though. She sends these videos where she’s walking, and then she comes here acting like she can’t move.”
“Brianne,” Mom said.
“What? I’m asking him.”
Dr. Bosch looked at me.
“Would you like me to answer that?”
I said yes. I was angry enough to let him describe every screw in my hip if it would get my mother to look at me.
“Walking during a supervised exercise doesn’t tell you what she can safely do here,” he said.
“But she was walking.”
“With help nearby.”
“She didn’t fall.”
“Nobody took her support away.”
Brianne rubbed her thumb across the place where she’d been holding my crutch.
“It wasn’t supposed to be a whole thing.”
Gina put her phone away.
“Our ride’s coming. I’ll meet it downstairs.”
“I can take her,” Dad said.
“Then take her,” Gina said.
He glanced at the tart.
“After we get her settled.”
Mom crouched beside me. Her knees cracked. Normally I would have offered her my chair before she’d finished lowering herself.
“Let me see the original recording,” she said.
“You have it.”
“I mean here. Show everyone the whole thing.”
I reached for my phone.
For a second I was back between those therapy rails, counting steps, thrilled by something I used to do while brushing my teeth. I’d sent that recording to my parents before I sent it to anybody else.
Now I was going to play it beside the food so a gathering of relatives could decide whether I qualified for my own crutches.
My hand stopped inside my bag.
“Why?”
Mom blinked.
“So they understand.”
“Did you understand when I sent it?”
“Of course I did.”
“Then you can tell them.”
She glanced toward Brianne.
My sister came closer, as though we were negotiating a discount and the manager had appeared.
“Nobody said you weren’t hurt in the accident. We’re saying sometimes you lean into it.”
Gina stepped between us.
“She asked for her crutch. You heard her.”
“I was going to give it back.”
“When?”
Brianne pointed toward Dr. Bosch.
“He came over before I could.”
I nearly laughed. She could pull a walking aid out from under a person, deliver a speech, deny two requests, and still consider herself interrupted.
Dr. Bosch moved aside as Gina brought my bag.
“Ready?” she said.
Dad held up his hand.
“Before you go, can we please clear this up?”
I turned toward him.
He pulled a chair over and sat facing me.
“Your sister says you made her look cruel.”
The leather wallet
Dad rested his elbows on his knees.
He used that posture when he wanted to be reasonable. It meant he would do most of the talking, and I was expected to admire how little he raised his voice.
“Everybody’s upset,” he said. “You’re hurting. Brianne’s embarrassed. Let’s take a minute.”
“She took my crutch.”
“I know.”
“I asked for it back.”
“I heard.”
“Then what are we clearing up?”
Mom stood behind him. She kept one hand on his shoulder, as though he were the one recovering from something.
Dad rubbed his palms together.
“She thought you could manage a few steps.”
Dr. Bosch started to speak.
I lifted my hand.
“Dad. I’m asking you.”
His eyes went to the broken cuff in Gina’s hand.
“I should have come over sooner.”
“You didn’t come over.”
“All right. I should have come over.”
Brianne pulled another chair around. She sat beside him, angled toward me.
“I was trying to get you to stop doing that thing where everyone has to hover.”
Gina remained standing.
“She was helping herself with the crutches.”
“And then she fell. Obviously I didn’t want that.”
“You laughed,” I said.
“I was shocked.”
Jalen looked down at his screen.
Dad put a hand on Brianne’s knee.
I kept staring at that hand. My sister was thirty-three. She’d just watched me struggle to stand, and Dad was comforting her where I could see it.
“We’re going to say things we can’t take back,” he said.
Brianne began crying.
Mom passed her a napkin from beside the tart. Nobody had offered me one when I’d wiped my hands on my dress.
It was such a petty thing to be angry about. A paper napkin. My hip hurt, my arm hurt where Gina had caught me, and half my brain was keeping score in disposable party supplies.
“I’m sorry you fell,” Brianne said.
She looked at Dad after she said it.
He nodded.
“There. Thank you.”
I waited.
He looked at me.
“What?”
“Your turn,” he said.
Gina made a sound through her nose.
Dad kept his eyes on mine.
“You’ve both said things.”
“What did I say?”
“You’re making her sound like she wanted to hurt you.”
I pulled the good crutch closer against my lap.
“She told me not to bring this back here.”
“She was upset.”
“So was I.”
“And I’m asking you both to put it aside for an hour.”
The relatives had stopped pretending to find things in their bags. Several stood near enough to hear everything. Dad glanced toward them, then back at me.
“Please, Krystal. It’s my birthday.”
I wanted to give him that hour.
That was the part I hated afterward. Not one second of me wanted to forgive Brianne, but I still wanted to get into the photograph beside my father and make him happy.
Gina touched my shoulder.
“You don’t have to answer that.”
Dad sat up.
“She’s my daughter. I can ask her a question.”
“And she answered,” Gina said.
Brianne dabbed under her eyes.
“I said I was sorry. What else am I supposed to do? Get on the ground myself?”
Jalen made a movement with his phone. Brianne looked at him, and he put it face down against his thigh.
Dad leaned closer.
“If you leave like this, that’s what everybody will remember.”
I looked past him at the wallet.
I’d spent longer choosing that gift than I’d spent choosing the color of the crutches. I’d pressed my thumb into the leather at the store to make sure it wouldn’t be stiff in his pocket.
“Bring me my wallet,” I said.
Mom’s hand came off Dad’s shoulder.
“Don’t do that.”
“I bought it.”
“For your father.”
“Bring it to me.”
Dad stood. For a second I thought he was going to get it.
Instead, he moved his chair out of Gina’s way.
“Then perhaps you should go.”
The terrace door
Gina crouched beside me.
“We can leave the chair where it is until there’s help,” she said. “You don’t have to prove anything getting downstairs.”
The ride was nearly there. Dr. Bosch offered to stay with me while Gina checked the route to the elevator.
Brianne got up.
“I’ll get the door.”
I tightened my hand around the crutch before I could stop myself.
She stopped reaching.
“Oh, come on.”
“Stay over there,” I said.
Her face changed. She looked toward the relatives, then at Mom.
“You hear how she’s speaking to me?”
Mom came around the back of my chair.
“Nobody’s going to touch your things, Krystal.”
“Good.”
“You don’t need to be frightened of your own sister.”
I wanted to ask whether she’d attended the same party. Perhaps there were two rooftops, and she’d been downstairs at the pleasant one.
Dr. Bosch pulled a chair close enough to sit beside me.
“Do you want some room?” he said.
“Yes.”
Mom took a step back.
Dad remained beside the griddle. The food had stopped receiving his attention now that it could no longer protect him from a conversation.
Jalen came toward me.
He held his phone flat against his palm.
“I can get rid of the bad part.”
I looked up at him.
“What part?”
“The bit where you’re on the ground. I can cut that.”
Brianne moved closer again.
“Just delete it.”
“I said don’t delete it yet,” I said.
Mom folded her arms.
“Keeping it won’t help your recovery.”
“No. Neither did lunch.”
Jalen’s mouth moved as though he might smile. He stopped.
“I shouldn’t have filmed,” he said.
“You shouldn’t have laughed.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He looked down.
I’d liked Jalen. That made the phone worse. He’d been the cousin who sent ridiculous pictures when I couldn’t sleep after surgery, who never required a cheerful report before talking about something else.
I’d expected him to put the thing down when I turned away.
Instead, he’d moved for a better angle.
“Did you send it to anyone?”
“No.”
“Show me.”
He opened the messages while I looked. There was no fresh send. Then he returned to the recording.
The little picture showed my face turned away from him.
I held out my hand.
Brianne reached toward the phone.
Jalen pulled it back.
“It’s mine,” he said.
“Then act like it,” she said. “Don’t let her make this into something.”
Dad came over.
“Enough with the phone.”
I kept my hand out.
“Send me the whole recording.”
“Krystal,” Mom said, “you’re going to watch it and upset yourself.”
“I’m upset now.”
Dad put his hand over Jalen’s screen.
“We can talk about this later, privately.”
I looked at the hand covering the phone.
Then at the path he’d cleared for me when I arrived.
The chairs were still pushed back. He’d measured that space with his own feet, making sure I had room for both crutches.
“Dad, did you think I’d cross this terrace without them?”
He took his hand away.
“Of course not,” he said.
Jalen’s screen
Dad glanced at Dr. Bosch.
“She has good days and bad days. We know that.”
“Then why did you let her keep it?”
“I thought she’d hand it back.”
“When I asked?”
“Yes.”
“And when she didn’t?”
Brianne stepped beside him.
“Don’t put this on Dad.”
I held up my hand without looking at her.
Dad rubbed the back of his neck.
“I didn’t want a confrontation in front of everybody.”
There were people close enough to hear that who’d clapped while I was on the ground.
I pressed my lips together. If I opened my mouth too quickly, I’d cry, and I wanted the next sentence to come out whole.
“You knew I needed it.”
“Yes.”
Mom looked toward the elevator entrance.
Gina had returned. She stayed beside the door with my bag.
For the last few minutes I’d been ready to show them the rest of the therapy recording. I would have described every bad morning if it got my father out of his chair.
He’d known before I fell.
I put my hand out to Jalen again.
“Send it.”
Dad started to speak.
“All of it,” I said.
Jalen sent the recording while I held my phone beside his. I opened it and checked that it played, then handed his phone back.
Brianne began talking before I’d put mine away.
“So that’s what this is now? You’re going to show everyone one ugly minute and let them decide what kind of sister I’ve been?”
“You’ve had eleven months,” Gina said.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
“She’s keeping the recording,” Gina said. “Get used to that.”
Dad sat down again.
“What do you want me to do?”
I could have said I wanted him to be somebody else. It would have felt good for three seconds and given him something to complain about for the rest of his life.
I pointed to the chair beside mine.
“Sit here. Look at it.”
He shook his head once.
“Please don’t make me.”
I opened the recording. Jalen’s laugh came out first.
Dad sat.
We didn’t get far. My hand reached into the picture for the teal crutch Brianne was holding out of reach.
From the phone, my voice said, “Dad.”
I stopped the recording.
He kept looking at the screen.
“Now answer me,” I said.
Beside the griddle
Dad got up so fast his chair struck the one behind him.
“Brianne. Come here.”
She was already close enough.
“Dad, don’t start doing this because she’s filming things.”
“I’m not filming,” I said.
I put my phone away.
Brianne looked from me to him.
“You said she needed to stop letting the accident run everything. You’ve said that yourself.”
Mom pressed a hand against her forehead.
“Brianne.”
“No. You don’t get to act like I’m the only one who’s been frustrated.”
Dad stood between us.
“I never told you to take her crutch.”
“You laughed earlier when I said she could walk for cake.”
“I shouldn’t have.”
Brianne’s mouth stayed open.
“And I should have stopped you,” he said.
Brianne turned toward Mom.
“Are you going to say something?”
Mom took a step toward her, then stopped beside my chair.
“She asked for it back,” Mom said.
“Everyone keeps saying that. I heard her.”
“Then you should have given it back.”
Brianne threw the napkin onto her chair.
“Fine. Fine, I was horrible. Can we stop having a public trial?”
I put the broken crutch across my lap.
“You’ll replace this.”
“Of course I’ll replace it. Is that all?”
“No.”
She rubbed both hands over her face.
“What, then?”
“Tell them who drove me to therapy.”
Gina looked down at me.
Brianne glanced toward the relatives. One of the women who’d nodded through her speech stood beside Jalen.
“Everyone knows Gina helped.”
“Who drove me?”
“Gina.”
“Who rearranged her days?”
“Gina, apparently. Nobody else did anything. Is that what we’re saying?”
Dad looked at my aunt.
“How often?”
“Every appointment she needed a ride for.”
Mom sat down.
Brianne began again.
“We offered. She just preferred going with Gina because Gina never tells her no.”
Gina reached for the cracked cuff. I let her take it.
“I told her no this morning,” she said. “I told her she didn’t have to come.”
Mom covered her mouth.
Brianne turned to me.
“You could have stayed home.”
“You could have left my crutch alone.”
Dad put a hand on the back of my chair.
I moved forward until his fingers weren’t against my shoulder.
He dropped his hand.
“Your mother and I stayed four days,” he said to the people near us. “Krystal paid what insurance didn’t. We didn’t buy these crutches.”
Brianne stared at him.
“Why are you telling everybody our business?”
“You told them,” he said.
Mom stood. She went to the tart and picked up the wallet.
For one foolish second, I expected her to pass it to Dad and ask us to start again.
She brought it to me.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
I put it in my bag.
Brianne’s eyes filled again.
“You’re actually taking his birthday present back.”
Dad looked at the bag, then at her.
“Go home.”
She made a sound that was almost a laugh.
“What?”
“Go home, Brianne.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
She turned to the relatives as though one of them might call the room to order.
Nobody moved.
Jalen put his phone in his pocket and pulled her chair away from the path to the elevator.
Brianne looked at Mom.
Mom stepped beside Gina.
“You need to leave,” she said.
“After everything I did to organize today?”
Dad reached past her and switched off the griddle.
“We’re finished.”
She stood there with her hands at her sides. I knew that face. Usually somebody rushed to give her a smaller version of what she’d demanded.
Nobody offered one.
She picked up her bag.
“I’ll buy the crutch part,” she said to me. “But you can’t keep this going forever. I’m your sister.”
“Don’t come to my home.”
Her lips pressed together.
“I said I’d replace it.”
“Send the money. Don’t come.”
She stood beside my chair long enough that Gina moved between us.
Brianne walked toward the exit.
At the door she turned.
“I hope this was worth it.”
I kept my hand around the teal grip.
“Walk yourself out.”
The replacement cuff
The following afternoon, Gina stood in my hallway while I fitted the replacement cuff.
The check after the fall hadn’t found a new break. I was sore enough to resent every chair in my apartment, but I was home, and nobody was asking me to demonstrate anything.
The replacement part cost $86.40.
I sent Brianne the receipt.
Her answer came while Gina held the shaft for me.
“Sent. Can you delete the video now?”
I checked the payment.
Exactly $86.40.
I typed, “The money replaces the part.”
Then I put my phone down.
Gina tightened the attachment and handed the crutch back. I tested it with her beside me.
“How is it?”
“Better company than yesterday.”
She laughed, then sat on the arm of my sofa and covered her eyes.
I put the crutch within reach.
“Gina.”
“I’m all right.”
“You don’t have to do that here.”
She took her hands away.
“I couldn’t get to you fast enough.”
“You got to me.”
“I should have taken it out of her hand.”
“You held me up.”
She looked at the floor.
I reached for her hand. There were marks on her palm from gripping the chair when she’d helped me sit.
“I need you to hear me,” I said. “You got to me.”
She began crying properly then, with the irritated expression she wore when a jar wouldn’t open.
I pulled her down beside me.
My own crying arrived without manners. I got halfway through saying I had really wanted Dad to like the wallet, and that was the end of sentences for a while.
Gina held on.
When I could speak again, I pointed toward my bag.
“Will you help me return that thing?”
She wiped her face with her sleeve.
“I’ll drive.”
Both teal crutches
Three days after the party, Mom and Dad came to my apartment at a time I’d agreed to.
Gina was there. I’d asked her to stay.
Dad stopped outside the door instead of stepping past me.
“Can we come in?”
I moved aside on both crutches.
He looked at the replacement cuff, then at my face.
“We won’t stay long.”
Mom held her phone.
“I sent the family a correction,” she said. “About your recovery. About who helped.”
“Did you include Brianne?”
“Yes.”
She held out the screen.
The message said Gina drove me, that I’d paid my own costs, and that neither parent had stopped Brianne when they should have.
I read it once.
“Leave it there,” I said. “Don’t follow it with an excuse.”
“I won’t.”
Dad stayed near the door.
“I’m sorry I asked you to apologize.”
I nodded.
He rubbed his thumb along the seam of his pocket.
“And I’m sorry I made you show me that.”
“I asked you to help before there was a recording.”
“I know.”
I wanted more from him than those two words. I also wanted him to stand there without making me comfort him.
He did.
Mom asked whether they could bring groceries later in the week.
“You can ask later in the week,” I said.
She nodded.
Dad looked toward the shelf by my bag. The wallet was gone; Gina and I had returned it that morning.
He didn’t ask.
When they left, he waited for me to reach the door at my own pace.
I locked it behind them.
Gina was putting on her shoes.
“Still want to go downstairs?”
I did.
We’d planned a short outing to the courtyard. No milestone. No audience to convince. Just a few minutes outside before I came back up.
I put my arms into the black cuffs.
At the elevator, Gina stood beside me instead of ahead of me. She didn’t keep asking whether I was all right. She knew I’d tell her.
The doors opened onto the paving outside.
I stopped at the change in surface and shifted my feet.
Gina waited.
Somebody inside laughed at something I couldn’t see. My hand tightened around the grip.
“Want to turn back?” she said.
“No. Just a second.”
She stayed where she was.
I moved the left crutch forward, then the right. My foot landed where I wanted it.
There was no phone pointed at me.
Gina opened the courtyard gate and held it while I crossed.
“Beside me,” I said.
She came through, and we kept going.
If this one got to you, send it to somebody who’s stood beside you when getting up took help.
For more family drama and hard-won comebacks, read about the night my ex-husband offered me our house in front of Kim and the family auction where my sister-in-law claimed my treasured cabinet. And for a story about starting over after a devastating loss, see my daughter’s question when our paramedic came back.
