Chapter 15: No Cane

Ansel's POV

The aide wanted me in the wheelchair.

It was folded in the trunk of the car.

He had put it there without asking me, the only insubordination of his career.

"Sergeant," I said. "Take it out."

"Sir, it's a ninety-minute drive, and you went down on the tile this morning."

"She wrote that I'd be fine with a bag every twelve hours."

"Yes, sir. She wrote that it's the legs it won't fix."

I took the page from him and looked at her handwriting.

She had written the rates in a small, hard slant.

Under the twelve she had drawn a line so firm that it had torn the paper.

I folded the page and put it in my breast pocket, over the four stars.

"Leave the chair," I said.

He left it.

I had been on my back for most of a day.

I had called Washington from that floor, with my cheek on the tile.

I had called the Inspector General of the Army, who owed me a favor.

I had told him everything in the file I had kept from her.

I told him about Lab 4, the transfer, my blood and the nurse.

I did not tell him about the photograph, because it was hers.

I had done all of it without asking her.

That was my habit, and she had walked out of my front door because of it.

She had been right to.

We drove to Norfolk with a colonel from the Inspector General's office in the front seat.

He was a quiet man with a briefcase.

Behind us a second car held four military police in dress blues.

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