Sofía creeps close and wraps her arms around you as if she can glue you together.
“Does it hurt, Daddy?” she whispers, and your heart breaks because you know she’s asking more than that.
You force a smile, smooth her hair, and lie, because you’ve always been good at lying.
Marina adjusts the cushion behind your back, sets a glass of water within reach, and straightens a rug you didn’t even notice was crooked.
She does it all without performance, without pity, without making you feel like a project.
That’s what unnerves you most—she helps like it’s normal, like you’re human.
You open your mouth to ask how she knew exactly what to do.
She redirects Sofía to her drawings with a gentle authority that makes you feel oddly safe.
Three days later, you fall again.
This time you don’t even try to crawl, because something inside you is tired of performing strength for empty rooms.
You stare at the ceiling and let the silence press down, thick and humiliating.
When Marina finds you, she doesn’t rush to lift you right away.
She kneels beside you and begins moving your legs, checking angles, testing reflexes, touching points with purpose.
Your irritation flickers, then shifts into curiosity you can’t hide.
“What are you doing?” you ask, and your voice sounds too small in your own house.
She answers like she’s been waiting for you to finally ask the right question.
“I’m checking for responses everyone might have missed,” Marina says.
“Sometimes there’s more there than the scans make it look like.”
You blink, because hope is a dangerous word in your life.
You ask her again, slower this time, “How do you know that?”
She pauses just long enough to decide whether you deserve the truth.
“I’m in my fourth year of physical therapy,” she says.
“I nanny to pay tuition, but this—rehab—this is what I do.”
And something inside your chest loosens, because for the first time in months, the future doesn’t feel like a locked door.