“That's what mothers do. Fathers just tell the kid to shape up. It's a basic difference between the two sexes. The girls always got homesick when they went to camp. Cindy always wanted to pick them up early, and I thought they should stick it out.”

“Who won?” Isabelle sounded amused. It was a softer side of Cynthia she had never heard him talk about, and she liked her better for it. She would have said the same thing. She had never sent either of her children away until Sophie went to university, and Isabelle thought that was too soon. She had wanted her to stay in Paris and go to the Sorbonne, instead of going to Grenoble.

“She did, of course. I was always away and couldn't enforce my rules. By the time I'd get back, they'd be home.”

“Good for her.”

“Well, I'd better get going, and see what tortures they have in store for me. I'm sure they've honed it to an art form here.” But he was in no way prepared for the intense regimen they had planned for him.

After the moderate therapy they had started in London, this was like joining the Marines. He did calisthenics as best he could, from his chair. They had him lifting weights to strengthen his upper body, and working with exercise machines. There was special therapy for his neck, a long workout in the pool, and special exercises for his legs. He had half an hour for lunch, and barely had time to get to the cafeteria, or speak to anyone, and by five o'clock when he got back to his room, he was so tired, he could hardly move. He couldn't even get out of his chair to get on the bed, and he had to ring for an orderly, who smiled when he heard Bill groan.

“Had a good workout today, Mr. Robinson?” He was a young African American who had trained with the Jets, and been injured himself five years before. He was studying to become a physical therapist. Bill was encouraged to see that there was no sign of his previous injuries and he was in fantastic shape, he was only twenty-six years old.

“Are you kidding?” Bill looked at him miserably. “I think they tried to kill me today.”

“You won't even feel it a couple of weeks from now. It'll be a piece of cake for you.” It was hard to imagine, and he offered to give Bill a massage. And after he left, Bill decided to skip dinner and stay in bed. He was dozing off, when there was a knock on his door that roused him again, and he asked sleepily who it was. When he opened his eyes, a young man in a wheelchair was already in his room.

“Hi. I'm Joe Andrews. I'm in the room next to you. Can I talk you into a basketball game at eight o'clock?” Bill groaned as he looked at him, and then laughed. Andrews was sitting at ease in his wheelchair, and appeared to have the use of only one arm. He was a handsome boy and looked to be in his early twenties. He'd been in a car accident that had killed four other people six months before.

“A basketball game? Are you kidding? You could use me as the ball. I don't think I'll ever be able to sit up again, let alone move.”

“It's tough at first,” Joe Andrews said as he smiled at him. “It gets easier after a while. It's a great place. Six months ago I was strapped to a body board, and all I could move were my eyes. I thought I'd be happy if I could just scratch my nose.” It was sobering to think of him that way, and with another moan, Bill sat up.

“You've got age on your side,” Bill pointed out to him, but he had always been in great shape until he got hit by the bus. “I'm an old man.”

“There's no such thing here. The captain of the basketball team is eighty-two, he had a stroke. He played for the Yankees sixty years ago.”

“I'm out of my league. I should have just enlisted in the Marines.”

“It would have been easier, but it's not as much fun. There are some really nice-looking women here.” It was like going to college in a funny way, and Bill decided instantly that he liked the boy. He had laughing eyes, and a nice smile and bright red hair.

“Sounds like you've been busy here.” Joe hadn't been, but he was looking again at least. The girl he'd been engaged to had been killed in the car accident, but he didn't mention it to Bill.

“I go to New York on weekends. Maybe you'd like to come with me sometime. It takes twenty minutes on the train.”

“That's a thought. Right now, I don't think I can move.”

“Why don't you come watch? I'll introduce you to some of the guys.” He was determined to bring Bill into the center of things. Joe was the senior floor rep, and he had volunteered to do just what he was doing with Bill. It was important for morale to get clients involved in more than just their own therapy. It was what had saved Joe's life. When he'd gotten to the rehab center, he'd been contemplating suicide after the accident. And now he'd come through the worst of it, and was on his way, and back into life.

“What about the girls?” Bill teased.

“Are you married?” Joe asked, drawing him out. He was great with people, and Bill could see he was a really nice kid. It saddened him to see him sitting in a wheelchair.

“Nope. I'm getting divorced.”

“That's too bad. There are a couple of girls on the team. One of them is eighteen.”

“I think I'd like to stay out of jail, if I can manage it. How old is the other one?”

“Sixty-three.” Joe grinned.

“I'll take her. She's more my age.”

“How old are you?”

“Fifty-two. Going on ninety today.”

“Have you had dinner yet?”

“I thought I'd skip it tonight.” He had skipped it the night before too. It was just too much trouble to go out again once he was in his room.

“That's a bad idea. I'll pick you up at six-thirty, you can decide about the game after that.” He didn't ask, and before Bill could object, Joe had left his room.

He had done his job well, and in spite of himself, Bill was back in his wheelchair at six-fifteen, and he felt better than he had an hour before. He'd showered and shaved and combed his hair. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, and he and Joe looked like two kids as they headed to the dining hall together. Joe seemed to know everyone on the way, and introduced Bill to everyone he could. Bill knew by then that Joe was twenty-two, from Minneapolis. He had graduated from college, and wanted to go to law school the following year. He had two sisters and an identical twin who had been in the accident with him. His twin and his fiancée had been killed, and both people in the other car. Joe's twin had been driving, when the other car hit them head-on, on a snowy night. A lot of the people at the hospital had tough stories, kids who had just been fooling around and doing nothing more serious than most kids did, a woman who'd been shot in the spine during a convenience store robbery when she stopped in the middle of the day to buy Cokes for her kids, people who'd had accidents and traumas of all kinds. Many of them were not only in physical therapy, but getting psychiatric help as well, like Joe and the woman who'd been shot in the spine. When they left the hospital, the idea was that they would be able to lead full, productive, astonishingly normal lives.

There were two hundred residents, and another three hundred or more came to the facility on an outpatient basis every day. But the ones who lived there formed a core of people for the most part who cared about each other and became like family during their extended stays. The noise in the cafeteria reminded Bill not so much of college, but of a cocktail party in full swing. Everyone was laughing, talking, making plans, and either bragging about their victories of the day, or complaining that they were being worked too hard. But Bill realized he hadn't seen that many smiling faces in a long time. It wasn't at all what he'd expected when he arrived.

“There's a tennis tournament next week, if you play.” Joe filled him in as he talked to about six people at once, at least four of them girls. But he wasn't unusual there, there were a lot of good-looking young guys in wheelchairs, Bill guessed that about half of the people he saw were in their twenties and male. The other half covered a wide range of ages, and less than half of them were women or girls. Three-quarters of the population were male. They seemed to get into more trouble, or had worse luck, drove their cars too fast, took greater risks, or played dangerous sports. But there were also a number of men and women Bill's age. And at their table there was a beautiful girl whose face was exquisite and whose speech was slurred. She was a model and had fallen down a flight of marble stairs at a shoot and gotten a tremendous head injury. She'd been in a coma for eight months, and as Bill talked to her, he realized how fortunate he and Isabelle had been. The girl's name was Helena, and her best friend in the rehab center was a young ballerina who'd been in a car accident, and was determined to dance again. They were people who had faced remarkable challenges, and were making an astonishing effort to overcome the hands they'd been dealt. Bill was overcome with admiration for them.

By the time dinner was over, he was feeling better again, and Joe and Helena had talked him into coming to the game, but he didn't want to play. He just wanted to watch.

“They're pretty good,” Helena smiled at him and commented in her slurred speech. She was in a wheelchair too, but only because she had vertigo from her head injury and sometimes fell with no warning. She felt safer in the chair. Bill was struck by how beautiful she was, and thought she looked like Isabelle. He knew from Joe that she'd worked in New York, Paris, and Milan, and been on the cover of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar before her accident. According to Joe, she was doing really well. “Next time you should play,” she encouraged Bill.