“I brought you something less elderly than the cane.”
I looked at the pole.
“It has cork on the handle.”
“That makes it athletic.”
“It makes it a cane with branding.”
She smiled.
Reid remained on the phone.
I stood slowly.
The morning’s effort had caught up with me all at once. My hip felt heavy. The headache had returned to a three. Words seemed wrapped in cotton.
Maeve noticed.
“You overdid it.”
“I diagnosed a charging fault.”
“Congratulations. You still overdid it.”
I pointed to Reid.
“His fault.”
“Of course.”
He looked at me over the phone, unimpressed.
Maeve followed me upstairs.
She checked my blood pressure, reflexes, shoulder mobility, balance, and the recovering strength in my right leg. She made me walk the length of the apartment using the pole.
I hated that it helped.
Afterward, I sat at the dining table drinking water while she entered notes into her tablet.
“Your mood was low this morning,” she said.
I looked at her.
“Reid told you?”
“He said you had a difficult start but improved.”
“He tells professionals everything.”
“He tells us what keeps you safe.”
I rubbed my thumb across the pole’s cork handle.
“I felt useless.”
Maeve did not rush to contradict me.
