"You taught me something before I ever wore a uniform," he told her. She asked what it was, and he said that being certain was not the same as being right. Beatrice considered that for a moment before closing the folder. "Your father taught you that," she replied, "but I'll take some of the credit for making sure you listened."
By late autumn, Beatrice could raise her right arm freely again, but the left remained unreliable. The fracture was healing more slowly than the doctors had hoped, leaving her with stiffness that flared after physical therapy and sometimes woke her during the night. She learned exercises that looked simple on paper and felt punishing when she tried them. Every small improvement mattered, yet she resented being congratulated for movements she had performed without thinking since childhood.
The family celebrated Thanksgiving at her house because she refused to have the holiday moved to somebody else's dining room. Henry brought a turkey so large that it barely fit through the oven door, Raymond arrived with too many pies, and Marcus organized a rotation to carry dishes before Beatrice could attempt it herself. Jackson came in the evening, delayed by his travel schedule, and found his mother overseeing the kitchen from a chair near the pantry. She gave him a look that made clear he would be washing dishes regardless of his position in the Army.
After dinner, the brothers sat outside beneath the pecan trees while their children chased one another around the yard. Jackson listened to Henry talk about a roofing crew that had finished a difficult job in heavy rain, then found himself staring at the ordinary scene as though it were a place he had briefly forgotten how to enter. He loved the sound of his nieces laughing and the sight of Marcus trying to repair a child's toy with a butter knife. Nothing in the yard needed his vigilance, but his mind kept searching for something to protect.
Beatrice came out carrying two cups of tea despite the arguments she knew the gesture would provoke. Jackson took the tray from her, set it on the porch rail, and asked whether she had noticed how many of her neighbors were checking on her lately. She said they were kind, but sometimes kindness carried the uncomfortable expectation that she would reassure everyone else. He asked whether she wanted them to stop asking about the trial, and she said she wanted them to ask about her garden more often.
At the next appointment with Dr. Mercer, she admitted that the approaching court date frightened her. It was not the prospect of being called a liar; people had questioned her judgment before, and she knew how to answer that. What frightened her was being required to listen to the officers describe the encounter as though she had willingly become a threat. She imagined hearing Stanton say she had resisted, then looking down at her healing shoulder and wondering whether anyone would believe the difference.