The struggle is the recovery.

To reach in and lift a man who has fought for months to stand is to tell him, in the kindest possible voice, that you don’t believe he can, and to rob him of the one thing the illness took that he’s trying to win back — not the standing itself, but the being the one who does it.

So when Garrett’s legs shook in that boardroom and my whole body wanted to steady him, I kept my hands at my sides, and Justin kept his at his, and we let him shake.

It was the hardest thing I did that whole year, harder than handing back Gertrude’s envelope, harder than facing Florence at the gate.