That afternoon, Andrew found himself walking toward the therapy room. He told himself he needed to check the equipment, make sure everything was properly maintained. But when he reached the door and heard Angela’s voice inside, he stopped. She was reading. Not a medical manual or a therapy guidebook. A children’s story. Something about a rabbit who wanted to learn to fly.
“Everyone told him rabbits don’t fly,” Angela read, her voice gentle and clear. “But the little rabbit didn’t listen. He climbed to the top of the hill every single day. And every single day, he jumped.”
Andrew peered through the crack in the door. The boys were arranged in a half-circle around her. She sat on the floor, cross-legged, the book open in her lap. Her eyes moved between the pages and their faces, checking, connecting.
“Did he ever fly?” she asked them. “What do you think?”
Silence. But Adam’s eyes were open. Fixed on her face. Andrew stepped back from the door. His chest felt strange, tight and loose at the same time. He walked back to his office without entering the room.
That night, reviewing the footage, he watched her read that story three more times. The camera captured the way she changed her voice for different characters, the way she paused to let the words settle. It showed his sons watching her. Something was shifting in that house. Andrew could feel it. He just didn’t trust it yet.
Andrew couldn’t stop watching. Every night after the house went dark, he’d sit in his office with the glow of monitors painting shadows across his face. He told himself it was caution. Responsibility. A father protecting his children from another betrayal. But that wasn’t true anymore. He was watching because something was happening. Something he didn’t understand.
Week three. Angela had stopped following the protocol entirely. It started small. The music. The stories. Things he could dismiss as harmless additions to her routine. But then it grew.
One evening, Andrew pulled up the afternoon footage and nearly choked on his whiskey. Angela was on the floor with Philip. She had his small legs in her hands and was moving them slowly, rhythmically. Left. Right. Left. Right. Like he was walking. Like his muscles remembered something his brain had forgotten.
Andrew’s jaw clenched. This wasn’t in any therapy plan. No specialist had prescribed this. She was improvising. Breaking every rule he’d set. He reached for his phone to call her. Fire her. End this before it went any further.
But then Philip laughed.
Not a big laugh. Just a small sound. Barely more than breath. But Andrew heard it through the speakers, and his hand froze over the phone. His son was laughing. When was the last time he’d heard that sound? Andrew set the phone down. His hands were shaking. He kept his eyes on the screen.
Angela moved to Eric next. She positioned a small toy truck just beyond his reach on the tray attached to his wheelchair. Too far for him to grab without effort.
“Come on, sweetheart,” she said softly. “You can do it. Just a little stretch.”
Eric’s arm stayed still. Angela waited. Patient. Unhurried.
“I know you can,” she whispered. “I believe in you.”
Andrew observed, holding his breath without realizing it. Eric’s fingers twitched. His arm moved. Slowly. Painfully slowly. He reached forward. His small hand stretched toward the truck. He touched it.
Angela’s face broke into the widest smile. “Yes. Look at you. Look at what you just did.”
Eric’s fingers curled around the toy. Andrew’s eyes burned. He rewound the footage. Played it again. And again. That small arm reaching. Those tiny fingers closing around plastic. Such a simple movement. Something any other child would do without thinking. But his son had just done the impossible.
Andrew rubbed his face with both hands. This was dangerous. All of it. Angela was giving his sons false hope. Pushing them beyond what the doctors said they could do. When she failed—and she would fail—the disappointment would destroy them. Destroy him. He should fire her. Tomorrow morning. First thing.
But instead of drafting a termination letter, Andrew pulled up more footage. Adam. The smallest of the three. The one who kept his eyes closed most of the day. Angela sat beside his wheelchair with a picture book. She wasn’t reading it. Just showing him the colors.
“This one’s blue,” she said, pointing. “Like the sky. And this one’s yellow. Like sunshine.”
Adam’s eyes were open. Fixed on the page.
“You see it, don’t you?” Angela whispered. “You see everything.”
She turned the page. Adam’s hand lifted from his lap. Just an inch. But it lifted. Angela noticed. She gently took his small hand and placed it on the book.
“There you go, sweet boy. You touch it. It’s yours.”
Andrew witnessed his son’s fingers press against the paper. Something cracked in his chest. Deep and painful. He closed the laptop. Sat in the darkness of his office. And for the first time in two years, Andrew Grant didn’t know what to believe.
Andrew didn’t plan to confront her. It just happened. Three weeks of surveillance. Three weeks of footage that kept him awake at night. Three weeks of seeing his sons respond to a woman who broke every rule he’d set. He couldn’t take it anymore.
Tuesday afternoon. Andrew left his office and walked down the hallway toward the therapy room. His footsteps echoed against the marble. Each step felt heavier than the last. He didn’t knock. Just pushed the door open and stood there.
Angela was on the floor with Adam. She had his small legs positioned in her hands, moving them in that same rhythmic pattern. Left, right, left, right. Like she was teaching his muscles to remember something they’d never learned. She looked up when the door opened. No surprise in her eyes. No fear. Just calm acknowledgement.
“Mr. Grant.”
Andrew’s voice came out harder than he intended. “What are you doing?”
Angela didn’t stop the movement. “Motor pattern training. It helps build neural pathways.”
“That’s not in the protocol.”
“No, sir, it’s not.”
Andrew stepped into the room. “I gave you specific instructions. Follow the medical plan. No improvising. No experimental treatments.”
Angela gently lowered Adam’s legs and stood up. She wiped her hands on her pants and faced him directly. “The medical plan has them sitting in wheelchairs all day, with minimal stimulation. That’s not treatment. That’s maintenance.”
Andrew’s jaw tightened. “The doctors… The doctors gave you a prognosis based on statistics.”
Angela’s voice stayed even. But something fierce lived beneath the surface. “They looked at scans and charts and told you what usually happens. They didn’t tell you what’s possible. They’re specialists. They’ve seen hundreds of cases like this. Have they seen your sons?”
The question hung in the air. Andrew stared at her. “Excuse me?”…
