“It’s in my living room.”
She laughed.
“Of course it is.”
Dad looked at me.
“You store this equipment at home?”
“Only when storage messes up.”
“You have storage?”
“Very glamorous career.”
Before he could ask anything else, an older woman entered pushing a walker.
She pointed at it.
“I broke it.”
I crouched beside the front wheel.
“You didn’t.”
“It clicked.”
“Everything clicks when you use it as a chair.”
She looked offended.
“I did not sit on it.”
I stared at her.
She sighed.
“Fine. Maybe once.”
Dad almost laughed.
I tightened the adjustment knob.
Then I handed the walker back.
“Show me what they taught you yesterday.”
She positioned herself.
Too far forward.
“Again.”
She corrected her stance.
“Better.”
Dad watched carefully.
She practiced turning.
Sitting.
Standing.
I didn’t touch her once.
I coached.
When she finished, she smiled.
“I still hate this thing.”
“You’re allowed.”
She visibly relaxed.
After she left, Dad looked at me.
“What exactly do you do here?”
“I’m a patient and family-care educator.”
He frowned.
“After Elliot recovered, I earned a master’s degree in health education and completed the hospital’s training program.”
Dad stared at me.
I gestured around the room.
“I teach families how to care for people safely at home. Mobility. Medication routines. Equipment use. I coordinate with therapists, nurses, pharmacists—whoever they need.”
“You’re not a nurse.”
“No.”
“You’re not a doctor.”
“No, Dad.”
His eyes moved toward Grandpa’s bag.
“You do this as your career?”
“Yes.”
For the first time all day, he looked uncertain.
Then the familiar expression returned.
“You could have done this after becoming a doctor.”
Five years disappeared in one sentence.
Same disappointment.
Same expectation.
“You were brilliant, Alyssa.”
I placed Grandpa’s bag on the table.
“I still am.”
His expression shifted.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know exactly what you meant.”
“You had a future people dream about.”
“Maybe I could have gone back.”
He immediately looked at me.
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Because being able to go back and wanting to go back are two different things.”
