“So I hear. Dragon is doing what she can to keep people updated, and that sounds more or less like what was passed on to me.”

“Sveta had her procedures, and that was a big distraction, but she’s done for now. She’s having to work her way back from some coping mechanisms, hesitation in movement, and train her coordination. That’s it. I don’t have that as a distraction anymore.”

He nodded. He’d asked for five minutes of my time, but now that he had it, he was standing there, staring out the window, not responding.

I looked out the window too, still brushing my hair. Sveta was on a treadmill now. Three people were, all moving at different speeds, each with their physiotherapists, coaches, or family members.

“Is there an angle here?” I asked, after a few too many seconds had passed.

“A few,” he said.

“I’m open to hearing it.”

“In our first meeting, I laid ground rules, set expectations. I wanted and want to work with you, to set goals and work toward goals, and to help you make progress. I asked for your patience. You missed two sessions in a row, which suggests impatience and doesn’t let me see where you are to make progress.”

I squinted at the window, trying to judge how my damp hair was. I stopped brushing. “My physiotherapist said the same thing.”

“That’s an extension of my point. That you stopped coming in to see me around the time you saw Mrs. Yamada. You’ve been pulling away from physio. You are engaged in cape activity. I may not be the most experienced person with capes, but I’ve worked with cops who threw themselves into their work when life got hard. Into their other life.”

“Yeah. Probably,” I said. “It applies. Not going to argue that comparison.”

“Meet me halfway?” he asked. “I can’t help if you don’t work with me, or if I can’t see what you’re doing.”

I shuffled my stuff around, putting the brush in my bag and digging out my notebook. I flipped through. “Did my homework.”

“Not quite as meaningful with therapy as with physio,” Dr. Darnall told me. “But that’s good.”

‘Homework’ in this case consisted of his little ‘draw your mood’ exercise, and answering from a selection of questions. Pick a color to characterize yesterday. Pick a word to characterize how you feel now. If the next twenty-four hours looked like a person, what would that person look like?

I liked the person one.

And then numbers. Silly, stupid measures without a yardstick to measure them.

I looked over as Dr. Darnall read. Each ‘day’ was me getting up, then drawing out a circle using the base of the glass of water I kept by my bed. Inside and around that circle, I’d draw to characterize my current state. Below, I’d answer the abstract questions.