Keith (Hathaway House #11) - Dale Mayer Page 0,31

The leg looked a little bit fuller, less angry.

“Now this is the one I took yesterday.” He picked up another photo, and he laid it down farther from Keith. “In this picture, what do you see that’s different?”

Keith stared at the pictures, as he studied the simple image of him sitting on a bench. There were two bench photos, both taken when Keith had been unaware. In the first one he listed to the side, his body inflamed and in obvious pain, but, in the last one, he sat up straighter, more muscle having developed on his left side, whereas it had been crunched in on that first photo. The color of his leg was more even-toned now, and the muscle obviously less inflamed, to the point of being almost happy.

“Wow,” he said, “that’s a really nice picture. I wasn’t expecting to see that kind of change.”

“It’s one of the reasons I document the progress with photos,” Shane said, “because, if you don’t see it, you don’t believe it. This is a godsend for you because seriously you’re already there, showing improvement,” he said. “This should show you that the work we’re doing has value.”

“I always knew it had value,” Keith said. “I just didn’t realize how much and how soon.”

“Of course not,” Shane replied. “But this? This is gold. So, are you going to give me any more guff about progress?”

Keith looked up in shock, smiled, and shook his head. “Absolutely not. Thank you. I really needed this.” He looked at the photos, then at Shane, and asked, “Can I keep them?”

“They’re yours,” he said, “for whatever you need to do with them.”

“Perfect,” he said. “Thank you.”

Chapter 9

The next morning, when Ilse walked into Hathaway House, she headed straight for Keith’s room. As she walked toward it, she could see his light shining, and she grinned. Her heart lightened as she stuck her head in the doorway and said, “So, is this like a standing date now?”

He chuckled. “Well, I tried to ignore you, and it didn’t work.”

He was sitting up this morning, looking at a bunch of photos. She hesitated to step forward because she hadn’t been invited, but he lifted his head, looked at her, and crimped his finger.

“Come here and see what Shane brought.”

She could see that he had laid out progress pictures. She picked up the first one, wincing. “Dear God,” she said, “what your poor body has been through.”

He nodded and said, “Now hold that photo next to this one from yesterday.”

She looked at the two in surprise. “Wow,” she said. “All that inflammation and the angry-looking welts and redness are gone. The muscles are fuller, healthier looking, thicker.”

“And look at these two,” he said, holding up the ones where he’s sitting on the bench.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “The first one looks like you’re in terrible pain,” she whispered.

“And the second one?”

She looked at it and smiled. “You’re sitting up straighter, much more of a military posture, and, while I’m not saying you’re happy in that picture,” she said cautiously because really he didn’t look happy, “but you look better.”

“Exactly. I don’t look happy because I still have a ton of work to be done, but, in the first one, I was in a ton of pain and a lot of that was due to my poor posture because I was collapsing in on myself. The muscles weren’t capable of holding me up, but now I’m feeling like I can do so much more,” he said enthusiastically.

She chuckled, laid the photos back down, and said, “So, at five o’clock in the morning, this is what you’re doing?”

“Absolutely,” he said, “and chances are I should be doing it every morning for the rest of my life.”

“Not a bad idea. Success begets more success, whether small or large,” she said, as she walked back to the doorway. “Back in ten with coffee.” And she quickly strode down the hallway, feeling so happy for him. It was obvious that he was full of pride and bursting with accomplishment. She knew he still had a long way to go, but she was still stuck on how injured and vulnerable he had looked in the first set of pictures. She’d met him already at that time, but he had been in bed, covered up, and so she hadn’t seen the kind of damage that had been done to his body, both to harm and to heal. The images wouldn’t leave her alone, even as she made coffee and