January brought the kind of cold that locked the city in and made everyone inside more honest.
Madden had a follow-up appointment with his neurologist in the second week of the month. The news was good, better than the projected baseline. His speech was fully recovered. His grip on the left side had returned to seventy percent and was still improving. The neurologist used the word remarkable, which was a word that apparently did not easily apply to stroke recovery at Madden's initial severity, and which made Eloise grip the arm of her chair briefly before releasing it.
I was not at the appointment. Kade took his parents and I held the office, which was the arrangement we had settled into, always one of us present at the company, always one of us available for the family. It worked becaus
