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those doors were locked, and I didn’t always have a key. That’s how it felt with numbers. I could just tell that door was never going to open.
    And I could tell that’s what Teddy was hoping. But why? I decided to push things a bit`, and started writing.
    DOCTORS SAY MY RECOVERY IS A MIRACLE . Well, that much was true. But I continued with SO I BET I’LL BE COUNTING IN NO TIME .
    Bull’s-eye. Teddy’s eyes bulged as he read. And the smile he’d adopted when I handed him the pad became tight and forced.
    “I bet you will, too, bro,” he finally said. “And I’ll do everything in my power to help you.”
    I smiled. He smiled. We were a very cheerful pair.
    The silence went on. I was used to it, and assumed that he would crack first. Sure enough, he finally spoke, his face growing serious once again.
    “Man, I still can’t get over the fact that you could even have a stroke when you did. Christ, bro, you were only twenty-eight.” Teddy shook his head. “That just blows my mind.”
    A blown mind was a subject I knew a little something about. IT’S RARE , I wrote, BUT NOT UNHEARD OF .
    I looked at my words and realized I was parroting a phrase my doctors had used to describe the likelihood of a young man having a stroke: rare, but not unheard of . Those same doctors had repeatedly found it necessary to quote statistics supporting this fact. Perhaps they thought I might take some consolation from hearing the demographics of my fellow stroke victims quantified, forgetting that the numbers they recited made no sense to me. Or maybe they were just trying to convince me that yes, it could happen to somebody my age. I was convinced. Really.
    Teddy switched his smile back on. “Well, thank God for miracles,” he said. “It’s really a... a blessing , the way you came back. And after we’d almost given up on you.”
    Almost?
    “Anyhoo...” Teddy said, looking at his watch. “Jesus, look at the time. I need to get over to Mom and Dad’s.” He stood and pushed the chair back.
    “You know how Mom is when she cooks – she’ll give me hell if I show up late for dinner.”
    I smiled, having no idea how Mom was when she cooked.
    “Listen, I promise the next time I come down we’ll have lots more time together. It’ll be great – just like old times.”
    He leaned towards me – for a moment I thought he was going to try to hug me. Instead, he clapped a hand on my shoulder.
    “I’ll catch you later, bro,” he said, slipping the massive ring back on its original finger. “It’s been so good to see you.”
    “You too,” I managed to say.
    He walked towards the door, then stopped and turned to face me. “Oh, and don’t worry. I mean, I won’t tell anybody at the firm about your little problem with numbers. Mum’s the word on that.”
    “Mum?” I repeated. Figures of speech that didn’t make literal sense were still hard for me. That was one of those closed doors, but I was working on it, and could feel the lock jiggle when I worked the key.
    Teddy said, “Totally mum, trust me.”
    He made a zipping-his-lips gesture, then turned and walked away, still smiling.
    I drifted off to sleep with a lot on my mind. Although today’s visitors had provided some clues, I was really starting to wonder what kind of person I used to be.

 
    Chapter 6
     
    I FIRST SAW REBECCA IN PHYSICAL THERAPY. She was holding herself upright, making her way slowly through that device that looks like the parallel bars they show in Olympic gymnastic competitions. Set about waist-high, the bars allowed her to support herself with her arms while she worked on putting one foot in front of the other.
    I watched her, trying to pick up any pointers. I hadn’t yet worked my way up to standing or walking; we were still rebuilding my strength and range of motion, a process that usually required me to sit in some elaborate exercise machine that focused on a specific muscle group. At the moment, I was doing something my trainer called