Chapter 236: Exercises

Liam returned the plate in the morning.

Sarah took it at the door, nodded once, and said she had an hour of work at the laundry two streets over. Sophie was on the terrace.

He could go through if Sophie did not send him away. Then she left with a bag under her arm, and the gate clicked shut behind her.

Sophie sat with her bad leg stretched out and a folded sheet of paper on the table. The stick leaned against the wall.

She wore loose trousers rolled to the knee on that side, and in the morning light the skin over the old injury looked pale and drawn tight. She did not seem surprised to see him.

"Mum told you."

"She said you had exercises. And that it was your choice."Sophie glanced at the paper. "I hate them."

"I know."

"You don’t. You’ve never had to do them." She picked up the sheet, then set it down again. "You can stay. Don’t coach. Don’t count out loud unless I ask. And if I tell you to go, you go."

"All right."

He sat on the low wall at the edge of the terrace, far enough away not to crowd her. The stone was already warm under his hands.

Sophie unfolded the paper and read it as though she did not know every line by heart, then began.

Ankle circles came first, slow and deliberate. Her jaw set whenever the motion caught.

She did ten in each direction, then flexed and pointed the foot against nothing, breathing evenly through her nose, and the scar pulled paler each time she stretched.

For the whole of the first set she ignored him. On the second she spoke without looking up.

"In Marseille the clinic wanted me to do these twice a day. I did them once and lied about the other."

"Did it help?"

"The lying? Yes. The exercises?" She grimaced and held the stretch. "Some days. Other days they only remind me it’s still there."

She shifted in the chair and wiped her palm on her trousers. A bee drifted across the terrace and on toward the lane, and Sophie waited until it had gone before she stood.

The standing work came next. She kept one hand on the back of the chair and moved her weight carefully onto the bad leg, held it, and released.

The flat ground was kinder to her balance than stairs would have been, but the concentration still showed in the set of her shoulders.

Liam did not offer her the chair, and he did not get up. When her ankle trembled on the fifth hold she swore under her breath and started the count again.

"You’re staring."

"I’m here. That’s different."

"Is it?" She held again, counted silently, let go. "You used to stare at the floor when Mum fed you. As if gratitude was something you had to hide."

"It was harder to take than to need."

Sophie laughed once, short and surprised.

"That sounds like you." She finished the standing set and sat down harder than she meant to, her face tight.

For a moment she only breathed. The sea made its small noise at the end of the lane, and somewhere a shutter opened and closed again.

"I almost wrote you," she said.

Liam waited."After we left the old place. Mum said we had no address to send it to, and I said we could send it anyway. Somewhere.

Anywhere." She rubbed the side of her knee with her thumb. "I didn’t. If you didn’t answer, I’d know. And if you did, I’d have to decide whether I was still angry." She looked at him. "I’m still deciding."

"That’s fair."

"Don’t be reasonable. It’s annoying." She picked up the sheet again. "Last set. Then you’re done watching me like a project."

The last set was resistance work, a rubber band looped around her foot and slow pulls against it, the kind of effort that looked small and cost a great deal more than it showed.

Halfway through she asked him to count. He counted, and said nothing else. Her breath shortened on the harder pulls, and he kept his voice level and slightly behind her pace, the way you would count for someone climbing.

When she finished she dropped the band on the table and leaned back in the chair with her eyes shut."That’s enough."

"All right."

She opened her eyes. "You can get me water. Then sit. Don’t leave like you’ve completed a task."He went inside and found a glass and filled it at the tap.

The kitchen was neat in the way Sarah kept everything neat, cups lined up on the shelf, a cloth folded over the edge of the sink. When he came back Sophie drank half of it and set the glass beside the folded sheet.

"Mum thinks you’re only guilt," she said. "I’m not so sure. Guilt doesn’t cross a country to reach people it could just send money to."

She flexed the foot once, testing it. "It doesn’t mean I forgive the silence. It only means you’re more complicated than I wanted you to be."

Before he could answer, the gate sounded.

Sarah came up the path with the laundry bag over her arm and saw them on the terrace: Sophie flushed from the work, Liam on the wall, the band and the sheet on the table between them.

She took in the whole scene in one glance and did not interrupt it.

"You did them," she said to Sophie.

"I did them. He counted when I told him to."

Something moved at the corner of Sarah’s mouth. "Good. Rest the leg. Lunch in a little while." She looked at Liam. "You’re still here."

"Until she sends me away."

Sophie waved a hand. "He can stay for lunch. If he talks too much, I’ll change my mind."

Sarah went inside, and water began to run in the kitchen. Sophie stayed on the terrace with the empty glass and the exercise sheet folded once under her palm.

The stiffness had eased a fraction in her shoulders, not gone, only eased."Don’t make a thing of the lunch," she said.

"I won’t."

"And don’t ask if it hurts. It hurts. That’s what the sheet is for."

"Understood."

Sophie looked toward the strip of sea, then back at him. For a second the anger and the relief sat in the same expression, and neither of them won.

"In the old days you never stayed for lunch," she said. "You always had somewhere to be. Or pretended you did."

"I did both."

"Yeah." She tapped the glass with a fingernail. "Tomorrow’s one of the days Mum works longer. If you come by, come late morning. Not early. I hate early."

It was not forgiveness. It was a time of day.

Liam nodded and stayed where he was and let the quiet hold. Inside, Sarah moved plates.

On the terrace the band lay coiled beside the sheet, and Sophie’s leg rested in the sun as if it had earned the stillness.

When Sarah called them in, Sophie rose without the stick, one hand brushing the chair for balance, and went first. Liam followed a moment later, and the doorway felt like less of a threshold than it had when the morning began.