Homeless. Exactly as I’d quietly promised.

My own reality was its own kind of crucible.

Every morning at 5:00 AM I was in a bright physical-therapy clinic in Beverly Hills. The pain was no longer sharp; it was a deep, nauseating ache that had settled into the marrow.

I sat at a sterile white table, forehead beaded with sweat. My left hand, out of the cast now, was a roadmap of angry pink scars. It trembled as I held a pair of delicate surgical tweezers.

On the table sat a plastic cup and a single glass bead no bigger than a grain of sand.

“Take a breath, Dr. Lin. Don’t force it,” Dr. Evans said, hovering at my shoulder. “Let the pathways find the bridge.”