Now remember.  Butt in.  Chest out.  I know how to do it!  Stand up straight, as straight as you can.  I am!  Actually, you’re not standing straight enough to be safe.  I’ll do it my way!  Your way will get you killed, Nelson: you’re too hunched over, and the walker will walk out from under you, and you will fall, and fall hard.  I do it this way all the time!  That’s part of the problem.  You can’t go home until you can get to the bathroom and back without help.  Well, I’ve done that a hundred times since I’ve been here!  Maybe six times.  But I need to be home for Lucille’s birthday on the 14^th…for Thanksgiving on the 23^rd…next Wednesday the 29^th!  You can have a three-hour pass on Thanksgiving.  Just three hours!  Only because you’re not strong enough yet to stay longer.  I’m not staying here until next Friday! That’s December already!  Friday would be best: you’ll have a few more days of therapy, and you’ll be stronger when you go home.  Wednesday!  You really must be able to get around without help: Lucille can’t help you if you fall, and neither can Roger, and they shouldn’t have to.  Now pull your butt in, straighten your knees, and push your chest out.  You’re so bossy!  (“Nelson tells all the staff how bossy you are.”)  If you did what they told you to do, and got safe and strong, I wouldn’t have to be so bossy.  I don’t need anyone’s help!  Oh, yes, you do, you definitely do.  I hate it here!  I’m sure you do.  I can’t stand staring at this ceiling and these walls for another week!  I’m sure it’s lonely and bleak and no fun at all, so work hard and do what they tell you to do so you can leave here and won’t have to come back again.  I guess I’ll just bite my tongue and come home next Friday!  That would be best—it won’t cost you a thing, and you’ll be that much stronger when you get home.  And you won’t be as much of a worry to Roger and Mom—Mom’s too old and frail to take care of you, and Roger works full time and anyway shouldn’t have the stress of picking you up off the floor and changing your soaked and messed clothing and shampooing the carpets every day (sorry to be blunt).  He won’t have to do that!  Wonderful—glad to hear it—Friday it is.  You have to leave already?  So soon?  ***  (Dad sat in his wheelchair before the wide windowpanes, looking out at the parking lot, the new snow covering all of November, the white-dusted mountains rearing up so stupendously high, sat in his wheelchair looking small and sad and far away, and I made sure Mom turned to wave before we drove away.)