Teri Lowell was trying not to hope.
Hope wouldn’t get her anywhere, she reminded herself. If she let herself picture an ideal future, she was going to be disappointed when it didn’t happen.
Still, she was so anxious to hear what the doctor said, she was fidgeting. The exam table’s paper cover crinkled underneath her as she shifted in place.
Dr. Campbell frowned thoughtfully at his clipboard. He was a kind-faced old man, always cheerful during examinations, friendly with his patients. He’d been the Lowell family doctor for all of Teri’s life, and a while before.
Which was part of the problem.
“Hmmm,” Dr. Campbell sighed. “Well, it looks like you’re doing very well, Teri. No post-concussion symptoms, you’ve been keeping up with your physical therapy, and you’re reporting very little pain anymore.”
Teri nodded firmly. She bit her lip to hold in the too-eager questions: So I’m fine? I can start putting my life together again?
“Still...” Dr. Campbell drew the word out.
No, no, no...
“...you’re not quite up to full strength. A little shaky on stairs and if you walk for too long. So I think you’d better come back in two weeks for another checkup, and until then, keep focusing on your recovery.”
No!
Dr. Campbell smiled as he hammered in the final nail: “It’s good that you have such a strong support system at home.”
“I feel so much better, though.” Teri kept her voice calm and steady. If there was one thing she’d learned from her “strong support system,” it was that getting worked up got you nowhere. “I really need to start living independently again. Plenty of people do it even if they get tired easily.”
“Now, now, let’s not try to rush things,” Dr. Campbell said benevolently. “A car accident of this magnitude is nothing to take lightly, and recovery can take much longer than patients expect.”
He made a few more notes on his clipboard, then looked up with another smile. “Besides, we don’t want to worry your mother, do we? Better to give it another few weeks or a month. I’m sure she’d be more comfortable with that, and it won’t hurt you at all to take it easy.”
Yes, it will. You don’t understand.
But Dr. Campbell would never understand, Teri knew. He’d known her since she was a baby, and she was never going to be a real adult in his eyes.
Any more than she was in her family’s eyes.
Two more weeks. She could take two more weeks. She tried not to think about that another few weeks or a month that Dr. Campbell had casually tossed out.
Instead, she went mechanically through the ritual of checking out, and then stepped outside into the fresh early-spring air. Her sister Lillian was waiting at the car. Teri counted it a victory that she hadn’t insisted on coming inside to “help,” but had been willing to go run errands while Teri was with Dr. Campbell.
Whatever other problems Teri might have, being able to walk on her own again was still an intense relief. She was never, ever taking it for granted again.
“Well?” Lillian demanded. “What did he say?”
Teri considered just saying, None of your business. Or even straight-up lying. But it wouldn’t work. Even if she could convince Lillian she was fine, their mother had started having coffee with Dr. Campbell once a week, “because he’s such an old friend.”
Teri knew that her mother was getting updates on her from the doctor. The one time she’d held back something Dr. Campbell had said, her mother had known within a few days, and Teri still hadn’t heard the end of it.
I’m taking care of you, dear, I need to have all of the information!
I’m better! Teri wanted to yell. I’m twenty-five years old. I can walk around by myself. I don’t need anyone to take care of me!
But her mother and her older sister would never believe that.
“Another appointment in two weeks,” Teri told Lillian, resigned to her fate. “Since I’m still a little shaky on stairs and after longer walks. But he said I was pretty much better.”
“Hmm,” Lillian said doubtfully. “That seems really soon to me.”
Lillian was seven years older than Teri and acted like she was another parent. Since she’d gotten a divorce from her husband and moved back in “to help Mom and Dad around the house,” she’d gotten more and more like their mother.
And one of their mother was already plenty of mother.
“That’s what he said,” Teri told her. “He said I was ‘doing very well.’”
“But you’re still going back in two weeks,” Lillian reminded her.
Teri shrugged, feeling like a sullen teenager. “He doesn’t want to rush.”
Lillian nodded approvingly, already pulling out her phone to call their mother and report. Because she couldn’t wait until they got home to tell her, oh no. It was a gesture of trust for Mom to even let her 32- and 25-year-old daughters go to the doctor’s appointment by themselves.
Teri stepped away from Lillian, not wanting to hear the call.
Instead, she started walking around the perimeter of the parking lot, toward the sidewalk. It was pretty deserted, except for a man who was walking up in her direction, scanning the businesses by the side of the road. As she watched, he frowned, about-faced, and walked the other way, more slowly.
Teri set out in the same direction. These days, whenever she had a chance, she walked. She rarely had the opportunity to do it outside, so she was taking advantage while she could.
Three months ago, Teri’s car had skidded on a patch of ice and gone into a tree. She’d broken seven bones, had needed over a hundred stitches, and gotten a concussion. It was a miracle that someone had happened to be driving by, seen the accident, and called 911 before she died. It was even more of a miracle that none of the damage had been permanent.
You’ll probably always be achy in bad weather, they’d told her at the hospital, but it could have been much, much worse. You’re lucky.
She was lucky. She reminded herself of that every day. She was so lucky to be alive at all.
But recovery had taken months. She’d lost her job, lost her apartment, and had had to spend all of her money on the medical bills—she’d had insurance, but even so, all that time in the hospital had been incredibly, painfully expensive.
Her parents were making payments for her care now, and Teri was both grateful and guilty. They weren’t rich, but they assured her that they could handle it. Her mother pounced on the mail when it came every day, so Teri didn’t even know how much they were spending.
And she was living at home.
Teri had moved out of the house the second she’d graduated from high school. She’d worked part-time during school and saved her money, and had gotten an apartment as soon as she could, because even though she loved her parents, she’d known that her mother would never, ev