Saturday.
Kai woke at five-forty and lay still for a moment before pressing his palm to the floor.
Shira — awake. Had been for a while. The rhythm was the deliberate kind.
Mira — asleep. Later riser than Shira. Her breathing deep and even.
He got up and started the kettle.
The morning was quiet in the way Saturdays were different from weekdays. No clinic appointment. No logistics. Just the apartment and the three of them and whatever the day became.
Kai made breakfast. Third day of the specialty ingredient rotation — back to Shira’s blend. He was getting faster at the preparation. The market woman’s handwritten schedule was pinned to the inside of the cabinet door and he followed it exactly.
He knocked on Shira’s door at seven.
"Food," Kai said.
"Coming," Shira said.
He knocked on Mira’s door. Three knocks.
A longer pause than usual. She was still waking up.
Then two slow knocks back. Which he had learned meant give me a minute.
He went back to the kitchen.
Shira came out before Mira. She positioned herself at the table and looked at the bowl without commenting, which meant she approved, and picked up her spoon.
She ate for a minute in silence.
Then she said, without looking up: "Dr. Harlen’s intake form asked about daily activity levels. I said minimal."
Kai waited.
"I want to change that answer," Shira said.
Kai said nothing.
"The physio exercise sheet," Shira said. "The one you left on the counter two weeks ago."
"It’s still there," Kai said.
Shira looked at her bowl.
"I’ve been doing some of it," she said. "The upper body components. The ones I can manage with the braces."
She said this the way someone admits to something they’re not sure they should have done.
Kai said: "Is it helping?"
"I don’t know yet," Shira said. "Maybe."
He nodded.
He didn’t say I know. I felt it every night through the wall. He didn’t say I’ve been tracking your rhythm for two weeks and I can tell the difference. He didn’t say any of it.
He said: "If you want to add more components I can go through the sheet with you. Flag the ones that need equipment versus the ones you can do with what we have."
Shira looked at her bowl.
"After breakfast," she said.
"After breakfast," Kai agreed.
Mira’s cane tapped into the kitchen.
She found her chair, sat, located her bowl. Her hair was loose and slightly uneven from sleep and she had not fixed it, which meant she was either tired or comfortable enough not to care. Both were progress.
She ate.
How did you sleep, Kai projected at her mentally then immediately remembered he couldn’t do that — that was only in the epub. He said it out loud instead.
"How did you sleep."
Mira reached for her marker.
Well, she wrote. Then a pause. Then: I used the audio reader before bed. It helped.
"Good," Kai said.
She lowered the board and kept eating.
It was a good morning.
=====
After breakfast Kai sat with Shira and went through the physio sheet.
He spread it on the table between them.
Shira read every page. She had clearly read them before — her eyes moved to specific sections without scanning — but she read them again with him there, which meant she was willing to be seen doing it.
"These three," she said, pointing with her braced arm. The movement was controlled. Better than two weeks ago. "I’ve been doing these three. The shoulder rotation, the grip resistance, and the lateral raise."
Kai looked at the pages.
The grip resistance exercise required squeezing a soft ball repeatedly. The specialist had listed it as foundational — the most basic way to begin rebuilding the nerve signal pathways in the hands.
"How long per session," Kai said.
"Ten minutes," Shira said. "Twice a day."
"Any sensation during," Kai said.
Shira was quiet for a moment.
"Sometimes," she said. "Not always. It comes and goes."
Kai nodded.
He turned to the next page. The lower body section.
Shira’s eyes moved there and then away.
"Not yet," she said.
"Okay," Kai said.
He turned back to the upper body pages.
"The fourth exercise," Kai said. "Wrist extension. It builds on the grip resistance. The sheet recommends adding it after two weeks of the foundational three."
Shira looked at it.
"You’ve done two weeks of the foundational three," Kai said.
Another silence.
"The brace supports it," Shira said. Not agreeing exactly. Just noting.
"Yes," Kai said.
She looked at the page.
"Show me the movement," she said.
Kai demonstrated it slowly — a basic wrist extension, palm down, lifting the hand against light resistance. No equipment needed at their level. Just the weight of the arm itself.
Shira watched.
Then she tried it.
The first attempt was nothing. Her arm didn’t respond.
The second attempt produced a small tremor in the forearm — the muscles trying and the nerve signal arriving late and partial.
The third attempt —
Her wrist lifted. Just slightly. Just for a second. The motion was not fluid and not controlled but it was there.
Shira went very still.
Kai went very still.
Neither of them said anything for a moment.
"Okay," Shira said. Very quietly.
She tried again. The lift again. Less than a centimeter. But real.
"Okay," she said again.
She was looking at her arm. Not at Kai. At her own arm, the way you look at something you had stopped expecting to see move.
Kai sat across the table and said nothing and let her have it.
========
Mira had been in her room all morning.
At eleven Kai heard her door open. The tap of her cane down the hallway. She went to the kitchen, navigating by memory — she had the apartment fully mapped now, her movements had the confidence of someone who knew exactly how many steps everything was.
She made herself tea.
Kai heard the kettle, the cabinet, the cup. All correct. No fumbling.
She carried it back to her room.
At the doorway she stopped.