She shook her head.

“But maybe some confusion. Time will tell.”

We’d already had my father on his feet once, helping him slowly into the washroom for the first proper bath he’d had in months, and that had been an ordeal.

His legs didn’t want to work very well.

The doctor, when he saw for himself, told us another word we hadn’t known. “Atrophy,” he said. “He needs to build up his muscles again.” Which wasn’t so frightening after all.

“But you must watch those sores of his and get them closed up quick as you can,” he said, looking at my mother. “You’ve done a good job keeping him clean. And you must not stop doing that until he’s well.”

For that, he gave her a salve, though she’d already brewed a fresh batch of vinegar with the “mother” from the last batch.

“Any trouble with your words?” the doctor said.

My father looked bemused.

“What’s this?” The doctor held up the stethoscope that hung around his neck.

“A stethoscope,” my father said.

“And this?” the doctor said, pointing at Captan.

“A loud dog.”

Which made Captan smile.

“Do you have a book handy?” the doctor said, looking about.

My mother stood up and left the room. She came back with the book that Esther had been reading to my father while I was up-mountain with Cate.

She handed it to the doctor, who handed it to my father, who let it fall open where it wanted him to begin.

He read the words aloud, slowly, but not as if he didn’t know them. “‘“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.”’”

He looked up at me. “So that’s another thing that seems to be all right.”

“How’s your memory?” the doctor said.

My father tipped his head. “How can I know what I might have forgotten?”

“Well, it’s clear you know everyone you ought to know. Do you remember your childhood?”

My father nodded.

“Coming here to live?”

“Yes, all of that.”

“What about how you got hurt?”

But that drew a frown. He looked at my mother. Then he looked at me, for just a moment, and I saw something in his eyes. Something that wasn’t confusion. Something else. “No, that’s a day I can’t recall. They’ve told me about it, but I can’t bring it back.”

“Anything about that day?”

He glanced at me again. “Not really.”

“Which is probably a blessing,” the doctor said, snapping his bag shut. “No sense in remembering something like that.”

—

When it came time to pay him, the doctor waved us off. “The boy has already paid my bill.”

We all looked at Larkin.