The accident had happened at a lakeside resort. Noah had slipped from a dock while Elliot argued on the phone, and by the time he turned, his son was gone beneath the surface. Noah survived. Barely. When they pulled him out, his legs were locked stiff, frozen as stone.
Since then, baths were sponge-only. Pools were forbidden. Showers avoided.
Elliot swallowed. “No,” he said. “We don’t—”
“I know,” Lina said. “That’s why.”
They wheeled Noah closer to the fountain.
The boy’s face tensed. His fingers gripped the armrests.
“I don’t want to,” he whispered.
Lina crouched until she was eye level with him. “I won’t push you,” she said. “But I will remind your body of something it remembers.”
Elliot’s instincts screamed at him to stop this. But exhaustion—years of it—held him still.
Lina took the garden hose resting against the wall. She didn’t aim it at Noah’s legs.
She sprayed the ground in front of him.
Cold water splashed across the marble, spreading fast, racing toward the wheelchair like a living thing.
Noah sucked in a breath.
Lina lifted the hose.
The water hit his shins.
Not gently.
No warning.
No ceremony.
Noah screamed.