Hazel's POV
By the sixth month, I had stopped using the cane entirely on good days, keeping it folded in my bag like an old habit I hadn't fully let go of, the way some people keep an umbrella even in a dry season out of pure superstition. My therapist called it remarkable. I called it overdue.
My research began attracting attention I hadn't sought and didn't entirely know how to hold. A paper I'd co written with Professor Larsen on art restoration as a tool in post conflict communities was accepted at a symposium in Geneva, and I stood at a podium in front of two hundred strangers and delivered it without a single tremor in my voice, without once glancing toward a corner of the room to see if anyone was laughing at the way I walked to the stage. Afterward, a woman from a small arts foun
