“Yes.” The injury had left Doolittle’s legs paralyzed, but without Hugh he would’ve died. I never knew why Hugh did it. He asked me if I wanted Doolittle to live, I said yes, and he pulled Doolittle back from the brink of death.

Doolittle frowned and drank his tea. “Ascanio is seven pounds lighter than his last weigh-in, which was less than a week ago. Hugh didn’t just mend bones. He forced Ascanio’s body to absorb the bone matrix and build entirely new tissue.”

“Could you do that?”

“Yes, but it would take me hours. Possibly days. How long did you say he worked on him?”

“Maybe six or seven minutes.”

Doolittle’s face turned serious. “Let me show you something.”

He looked down. I looked down too, at his feet in white socks.

Doolittle made fists with his toes. I blinked to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. No, he was making fists with his toes.

“You’re getting better.” The relief washed over me. I was drowning in grief and I had no defenses against it.

“It appears to be so. It is possible that in a few years I may even walk again.”

I hugged him.

He hugged me back gently.

Something hot and wet slid over my cheeks. I realized I was crying.

“Oh no,” Doolittle murmured and patted my hair. “No, no, none of that now. If you do that, I’m going to tear up and I’m too old for that.”

I let him go and sat down. He cleared his throat.

“This chair, Kate, it isn’t a bad thing.”

“But you can’t walk.”

He raised his hand. “Hear me out. Before this injury, I had never been seriously ill. I’m a physician who understood what it’s like to be sick but had never personally felt the impact of a life-threatening disease or experienced a significant injury. This chair made me a better physician. It has given me a new perspective. Tell me, when you see me rolling toward you in the hall, do you see me or do you see the chair?”

“I see you.” Of course I saw him. He was still Doolittle.