The next morning Mrs. Rodriguez brought coffee.
“You read it,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“He couldn’t undo that night,” she said quietly. “So he spent the rest of his life making up for it.”
A month later, after meeting with the lawyer and handling paperwork, I rolled into a rehabilitation center.
A physical therapist named Carlos looked through my chart.
“Been a while,” he said. “This is going to be rough.”
“I know,” I replied. “Someone worked really hard so I could be here. I’m not wasting it.”
They strapped me into a harness above a treadmill.
My legs hung beneath me.
“You okay?” Carlos asked.
Tears filled my eyes.
“I’m just doing something my uncle wanted me to do.”
The machine started.
My muscles screamed. My knees buckled. The harness caught me.
“Again,” I said.
Last week, for the first time since I was four years old, I stood with most of my weight on my own legs.
It wasn’t pretty.
I shook. I cried.
But I was upright.
I could feel the floor beneath me.
In my head I heard Tom’s voice.
“You’re gonna live, kiddo.”
Do I forgive him?
Some days, no.
Other days I remember his rough hands lifting me, his terrible braids, his constant speeches about how I wasn’t less.