Not relief that the problem was minor — it wasn’t — but the deeper relief of a person who has been told for months that she is imagining things, finally hearing an expert confirm that she was right all along.

She had not been making it up.

She had never been making it up.

Her body had been telling the truth the whole time, and so had she, and now a doctor was saying so out loud, and Martha saw the weight of a hundred small dismissals begin, just slightly, to lift off her daughter’s shoulders.

Martha took her daughter’s hand.

“We are going to do whatever it takes,” she said.