“But how? Why? What did they do?”
“Doctor Gruber designed a sort of metal boot which can be adjusted in a number of ways. It forces the front of the foot down and the heel up just as the shoes do, only more so. It’s very painful, but they gave me injections to ease the pain at first. I wore them every night for many months. Each night an adjustment was made to increase the angle. In the daytime I was required to wear shoes with heels like these. In time, the tendons of my heels shrank. This pulled the heels of my feet up so that only my toes touched the floor. Now, I can’t place my foot flat on the ground. I can’t even be comfortable in any shoe that doesn’t have a heel of five inches.” She looked down at her feet. “They call it ‘hobbling’…”
“But why?”
“For two reasons. As I said, it’s
