Chapter 6 - UNCLE JAVI STOOD UP
Sophia Reyes had been telling the truth for the wrong reason.
Alina learned that on Thursday.
Rosa arrived with Sophia and another person.
A man in his early thirties.
Dark hair.
Gray sweatshirt.
Wheelchair.
Alina stared.
Sophia ran inside.
“Javi!”
The man rolled after her.
He looked at Alina.
“You must be the famous toe.”
Alina blinked.
“What?”
Rosa covered her face.
“I’m sorry.”
The man laughed.
“I’m Javier.”
“Your brother.”
Rosa nodded.
“The spinal injury.”
“Yes.”
Javier looked at Alina.
“T12?”
“Yes.”
“Mine’s L1.”
“I know.”
“Rosa talks too much.”
“She actually doesn’t.”
“That means she likes you.”
Rosa stared at him.
He ignored her.
Sophia climbed onto the side of Javier’s wheelchair.
He caught her easily.
“No riding.”
“Please.”
“No.”
She looked at Alina.
“Javi walk.”
Alina stopped.
Javier looked at Sophia.
“Sometimes.”
Sophia jumped down.
“Show.”
Rosa immediately said:
“No.”
Alina appreciated that.
Not performance.
Javier looked at her.
“Do you want me to?”
Alina thought.
“Yes.”
Javier nodded.
Rosa placed forearm crutches beside him.
He locked the wheelchair.
Then slowly shifted forward.
Braced.
Pushed.
Stood.
Not effortlessly.
Not straight.
One leg trembled.
The other locked with a brace.
He used both crutches and Rosa’s hand near his elbow without touching unless needed.
Sophia clapped.
“Walk!”
Javier took three uneven steps.
Stopped.
Turned badly.
Sat.
Breathing hard.
Alina stared.
“That’s walking?”
He laughed.
“Rude.”
“No.”
She felt embarrassed.
“I mean—”
“I know what you mean.”
He looked at Sophia.
“To her, yes.”
Then at Alina.
“To insurance, also yes, which is annoying.”
Alina almost smiled.
He continued.
“I use my chair eighty percent of the day.”
Sophia pointed.
“But walk.”
“Yes.”
“Again.”
“No.”
She pouted.
Javier looked at Alina.
“That is why she told you that you can walk again.”
Alina stared at Sophia.
The toddler was opening animal crackers.
“She thinks chairs and walking are not opposites.”
Javier nodded.
“She’s smarter than most rehabilitation advertising.”
Alina looked at her own chair.
For five months, adults had treated walking like the finish line.
Wheelchair as failure.
Standing as victory.
Javier tapped his wheel.
“This is how I get groceries.”
He lifted one crutch.
“This is how I reach my kitchen shelf when I feel stubborn.”
He smiled.
“Both are mobility.”
Alina swallowed.
“Did you always know you’d stand?”
“No.”
“Did doctors say you would?”
“No.”
“Then how long?”
“First voluntary movement was four months.”
“Toe?”
“Hip.”
“Standing?”
“Ten months with parallel bars.”
“Walking?”
“Depends what you call walking.”
Alina looked at Sophia.
“Three steps?”
Javier smiled.
“First three? Fourteen months.”
The number felt huge.
Also possible.
Not promise.
Timeline.
“What helped?”
“Therapy.”
“Everybody says that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“What else?”
“Good equipment. luck. incomplete injury. stubbornness.”
“Anger?”
“Excellent fuel. Terrible steering.”
Alina laughed.
Then grew serious.
“Did somebody tell you trust me, you can walk again?”
Javier looked at Sophia.
“She did.”
Alina stared.
“When?”
“Last year.”
Rosa smiled.
“She saw him stand once with braces.”
Javier continued:
“Then every time I used the wheelchair, she accused me of forgetting.”
Sophia looked offended.
“You forget.”
“I remember.”
“Walk.”
“Snack.”
Sophia accepted snack as substitute.
Alina looked at Rosa.
“You knew why she said it.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Rosa thought.
“Because the first day, you did not need me turning her sentence into a prognosis.”
Alina’s throat tightened.
Good.
That was exactly right.
Dr. Keller arrived for therapy.
Javier started to leave.
Alina stopped him.
“Stay?”
He looked at Rosa.
Then Alina.
“If Dr. Keller agrees.”
Keller did.
That session had one goal.
Not walking.
Not standing.
Weight shift.
Alina transferred to a therapy mat with assistance.
She hated being lifted.
Dr. Keller let her direct the transfer.
“Left first.”
“Yes.”
“Wait.”
They waited.
“Now.”
Her choice.
Then braces.
Standing frame.
Alina’s heart started racing before the straps were secured.
Matteo memory.
Purple shoes.
Running.
Crash.
She shook her head.
“No.”
Dr. Keller stopped.
“Okay.”
Marco was not in the room.
Alina had banned him from this session.
Not because she didn’t love him.
Because his hope filled too much space.
Rosa sat near Sophia.
Javier watched from the corner.
Nobody said again.
Nobody said try.
Then Sophia walked over.
She held one animal cracker.
A lion.
She placed it on the therapy rail.
“Lion wait.”
Alina laughed despite panic.
“What?”
“Get lion.”
Javier said:
“Clinical sophistication.”
Rosa smiled.
Alina looked at the standing frame.
Then the cracker.
“This is ridiculous.”
Sophia nodded.
“Lion.”
Alina’s breathing slowed.
Dr. Keller asked:
“Do you want to continue?”
Not:
Can you.
Want.
Alina closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
They raised the frame gradually.
Twenty degrees.
Forty.
Sixty.
Her blood pressure held.
Her legs felt strange.
Pressure.
Not strength.
Her knees supported by braces.
Eighty degrees.
Almost upright.
Tears filled her eyes.
Not because she was standing.
The machine was holding much of her.
Because the room looked different from this height.
The window lower.
The table lower.
Sophia’s head farther down.
Five months.
“Okay?”
Dr. Keller asked.
“No.”
He reached for the control.
“Wait.”
He stopped.
Alina breathed.
“I mean no, I’m not okay.”
Javier nodded.
“You don’t have to be.”
“But don’t lower yet.”
“Okay.”
Sophia pointed at the lion.
“Get.”
“I cannot reach that.”
“Arm.”
Alina laughed.
She reached.
Took the cracker.
Sophia cheered.
The entire therapeutic milestone was retrieving a stale animal cracker.
Alina would later remember it more clearly than medical scores.
After eight minutes, she asked to lower.
Not failure.
Decision.
Javier waited until she was back in the chair.
Then said:
“Harder than it looks.”
“Yes.”
“Want advice?”
“No.”
He smiled.
“Excellent.”
Then:
“Want company again?”
Alina thought.
“Yes.”
He nodded.
Rosa looked relieved.
Marco entered only after the session.
He saw the standing frame.
Then Alina.
“How did it go?”
She waited.
Would he ask how high?
How long?
Did you stand?
Instead:
“How did it feel?”
Alina almost cried.
“Terrifying.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
“Also kind of good.”
His face softened.
“Okay.”
She looked at him.
“Dana’s footage?”
His expression changed.
“Investigators enhanced it.”
“What did they find?”
“A face.”
Alina’s stomach tightened.
“The driver?”
“No.”
“One of the men who wheeled Matteo out.”
“Who?”
Marco sat.
That was bad.
Alina’s hands went cold.
“Papa.”
He looked at her.
“Gabriel Serrano.”
Silence.
The man Matteo had gone to meet.
The man Marco believed had betrayed the family.
Gabriel had been at Ridgeway.
He had helped move Matteo out.
Alina stared.
“Alive?”
“We think so.”
“Where?”
“Unknown.”
“Then why does that make you look like that?”
Marco’s eyes darkened.
“Because Gabriel sent Enzo a message this morning.”
Enzo entered behind him holding a printed photograph.
Current.
Gabriel stood beside a newspaper dated yesterday.
Alive.
Older.
Bearded.
On the back, handwritten:
MATTEO DIDN’T DIE AT RIDGEWAY.
Alina stopped breathing.
Below it:
ASK MARCO WHO OWNED THE HOUSE ON OLD MILL ROAD.
Everyone looked at Marco.
His face drained.
Alina whispered:
“What house?”
Marco answered:
“My father’s old safe house.”
“Who uses it now?”
Silence.
Then:
“Dominic.”
Alina’s stomach turned.
If Gabriel was telling the truth, Matteo had survived the crash.
Survived Ridgeway.
And had been taken to a Moretti safe house no one had searched because everyone believed he was already dead.
The question was no longer where Matteo died.
It was what happened to him after everyone stopped looking.
Javier stayed for dinner.
Not formal dinner.
Kitchen pasta.
Sophia dropped peas on the floor and blamed the spoon.
Alina watched Javier transfer from chair to dining chair without assistance.
“You could just stay in the wheelchair.”
“Yes.”
“Why move?”
“Because this chair fits under the table better.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Alina stared.
No symbolic reason.
No inspirational speech.
Just furniture.
He noticed.
“You thought every mobility choice had to mean something.”
“Maybe.”
He pointed at her wheelchair.
“Sometimes a chair is a chair.”
Sophia held up a pea.
“Green ball.”
Javier nodded.
“Sometimes a pea is a pea.”
Alina laughed.
That sentence loosened something inside her.
Maybe walking did not have to prove she had beaten anything.
Maybe standing could be useful sometimes.
A chair useful other times.
A body did not owe anyone a dramatic ending.
Before Javier left, Marco stopped him in the hall.
Alina could hear because the east-wing door was open.
“How much did your rehabilitation cost?”
Javier laughed.
“That is a very Marco Moretti question.”
Marco did not deny it.
“Answer.”
Javier’s voice changed.
“More than my family had.”
Marco went quiet.
“Did you get what you needed?”
“Eventually.”
“How?”
“Insurance appeal. charity fund. Rosa worked nights.”
Alina looked toward Rosa.
She was tying Sophia’s shoe.
No speech.
No complaint.
Just history.
Marco asked:
“If money had been unlimited?”
Javier thought.
“I might have had equipment sooner.”
“And?”
“I still would have needed time.”
Marco said nothing.
Javier continued:
“You cannot purchase a nervous system into obeying your schedule.”
Alina smiled.
Someone had finally explained her father in one sentence.
Then Javier added:
“But you can make sure money is not the reason a kid misses therapy.”
Marco looked toward the east wing.
Alina knew that look.
Planning.
She called out:
“Papa.”
He appeared.
“No foundation with my name.”
His eyebrows rose.
“I did not say—”
“You thought it.”
Javier laughed.
Alina continued:
“If you fund anything, no Moretti name, no photos, no speeches.”
Marco looked offended.
“Can I at least write a check?”
“Yes.”
“Thank God.”
May you like
Alina smiled.
He was learning that helping was easier when nobody had to become grateful on command.
