She’d been only a few years older than her younger siblings, but she’d been the one to make sure they did their homework and ate dinner. “Laurel was never good at math and science. It didn’t come naturally to her. She had other talents. You were being lazy and floating by on your innate intelligence. If you had flunked that class, the school would have wanted a parent-teacher conference. We didn’t have a parent to send.”

Those years had been so rough, always walking a tightrope. She couldn’t do it again. She couldn’t simply apologize for something she wasn’t sorry for and go back to him. It was inevitable that she and Noelle would clash from time to time and she would go through this all over again. She would walk a tightrope, the same one she had in childhood— be perfect or she would lose it all.

“Huh, I never thought of it that way. As a teen it just felt unfair,” Lisa said.

“Yeah, well, I’m sure Noelle would agree with you. Armie certainly does. He asked me to leave because if I stayed he wouldn’t be putting Noelle first. The funny thing is, I’m trying to do the same thing.” She’d known they would fight about it and she’d done it anyway.

“He doesn’t want her to do the physical therapy?”

“He believes what the old doctor told him. He doesn’t want a second opinion because he doesn’t want to give Noelle false hope. I personally think it’s better than no hope at all. At least if she thought there might be a chance, she would try to figure out how to be more independent. Armie’s rigged the whole house so she doesn’t have to struggle. That’s great, but the world won’t be like that. It isn’t like that for anyone. He’s done a great job of making her comfortable, but he won’t teach her life skills. I’ve been trying to teach her how to help around the house. She tells me she can’t do it. Do they honestly believe people in wheelchairs can’t cook or do laundry? Because that’s ridiculous. Even if she never gets out of that chair, she can be independent. She can go to college and study whatever she wants. She can have a full life where she does amazing things, but she can’t if she won’t believe in herself.”

“You need to talk to him,” Lisa urged.