OK, in the movie of the week, Ann would be doing fine after a week and we'd have a nice family scene right in time to roll the credits.

You've never dealt with an injury like this. Ann's legs are in braces, and she is bald from the surgery (they kept her shaved because they had to open her up once or twice after the main procedure), and she's afraid of going to sleep and flinches at the sound of a horn. She also has nightmares.

And she's in a lot of pain. You can only give a small child so much in the way of painkillers, and if she still hurts, too bad. Ron and I spend a lot of nights just holding her in our arms like we did when she was much younger, singing her to sleep as she tries to keep from crying. It's especially hard when she says she's sorry for being such a baby.

She isn't being a baby, in case you were stupid enough to ask.

But we don't know if she'll ever be able to walk without assistance again, although at least her mind has come out intact. She gets upset when people see her really short hair, and so one day Ron shows up with a ridiculous hat and tells our daughter that he wore it to work but they said it wasn't dress code, so can she wear it for him? And he did, too—wear it to work, I mean.

God I love Ron.

David's also helping all he can, which in a kid his age often translates out to "more work for mom and dad", but I'm not going to complain. He needs to feel like he can do something, even if the words "I made lunch, Mommy" can still cause me to twitch.

But I almost break my word to Ron. Ann's with Bonnie, and David's at school, and Ron, Kim and I go to the court case for the man who almost murdered my daughter. I figure I'm doing fine, my eyes boring a hole in his back, until he gets on the stand. That's when he mentions that it wasn't his fault, he was really drunk and trying to get home. She should have heard him coming.

Have you ever had the world go red with rage? Or had your ears get so full of a roaring sound you can't hear anything else?

I did.

Suddenly, Kim has me around the waist and Ron has me by the shoulders and I'm halfway over the chairs, heading for him. I'm not even using martial arts or my fire—that won't work. I want to feel his flesh tear under my bare hands. Thank God the bailiff didn't get to me, because Kim and Ron were the only people I wouldn't have killed on my way to him.

They get me out and I almost catch a contempt of court, but the judge doesn't like drunks either and he simply flat out asks me in chambers (after the chaos is ended) can I trust myself to not do that again.

I can't. It's unfair, but Ron has to sit there and listen to him make excuses.

What happened to him? Guilty, 50 years in jail, 40 of which he'll serve before parole kicks in. Ask me if I care. I want the thing I can't have, which is my daughter back like she was before he hit her.

But Ann is trying to do better—and we have a special physical therapist. You know her.

Aunt Bonnie.

And she's a better choice than either me or Kim. See, Bonnie isn't a natural. Kim and I, well we're physical naturals. Hell, look at how well Kim did at cheerleading even though half the time she was fighting me—and how well she did fighting me when she was spending half her time cheerleading. Call it what you want, both of us were able to do more, for less cost, than just about anyone in the world.

And that doesn't leave us…prepared for those who aren't.

Bonnie wasn't a natural. She was, in fact, a bit of a klutz—and her sisters made fun of her for it.

So when Bonnie talks about 12 years of intensive training, she means it. Not 12 years of getting up, doing it for an hour, and hitting the showers, but 12 years of working morning, going to school, working at night, and biting your lip the next morning because you want to cry it hurts so bad…before you go and do it all over again.

Her mom seems nice, but God, she was so amazingly clueless. I'm surprised Bonnie wasn't even more screwed up—and when I found that little tidbit out, it didn't take a genius to understand why she was so envious of Kim. Kind of like the way the pauper might feel hearing the rich man laugh about how easy it was to pay for that fifty dollar meal.

But anyway, Bonnie understands pain, in a way Kim and I can't, especially this kind of pain. That's why she's working to become a pediatric physical therapist, and she's willing to put off her graduation a year to work with Ann.

Dr. Possible finds out and that doesn't fly—Ann simply becomes part of her course work.

But don't forget that Bonnie didn't know that when she offered.

Well, it works pretty good—at first Ann doesn't want to, because she loves Aunt Bonnie but is a little ashamed to be seen like this, but Bonnie handles that by showing her some of the pictures of Bonnie at her age and telling stories about how she was always falling over and knocking things down.

That costs her, even today, I see. Ann can't, but a few times, I see Aunt Bonnie's hand, needing to find Aunt Kim's for support.

So Ann starts work with Bonnie. Beginning with "getting up" to "walking five feet without falling" to being able to walk around the room.

It's painful. Very painful. You want to run and grab her, but you can't, because she'll never get better that way. So you wait, and you watch, and you congratulate her, and try and massage the pain out of her legs, and rub the special ointment in… while you're also taking care of David, who is a small child as well, and preparing for the new twins. (yep, Ron did it again). Her pet Rufus descendant, who she calls 'Ufus, sleeps with her every night, and walks with her.

So she gets better. It's a slow process. When the twins are born (identical girls), she's still limping. Bonnie thinks she's doing a thousand percent better, but she's still limping, and that produces a…well arg-no, not argument, between Ron and I. I'll tell you.

See, one thing we decided, from before the first two were born, was that we do not lie to our children. Both Ron and I had problems with that. So we don't—we don't put the cold hard truth out there brutally. ("Yes, you can pray and Grandma will hear you," rather than "no, she's dead")

Well, Ann wants to be a cheerleader like Aunt Kim or Aunt Bonnie…or maybe a mascot like daddy. Right now I have no clue if she's going to be able to walk across the street.

Then one day I come in from shopping, and Ron's in the living room with the twins (Sharon and Claire), David and Ann…and he's telling Ann what a good cheerleader she'll be.

OK. Right now, I have no clue if Ann will ever be a cheerleader. And Ron's telling her she will be. Not might, will.

We are going to talk. After dinner, after Ann and David's homework and Ann's exercises.

So I go stalking into the kitchen when everyone's asleep, and there's Ron, not moving a lot, his hands on the counter edge. I get ready to talk (not bellow, because Kid's have a sixth sense about when mom and dad are arguing and it freaks them out). I open my mouth to have our quiet, but very serious talk, when I notice that his shoulders are trembling…and I can see drops falling into the sink.

He's crying.

Suddenly, I lose all my irritation and anger, and just cross and put my hands on his shoulders.

Ron tells me he knows why I'm pissed. I'm right. He shouldn't have said that. She may never be able to do that. He takes a deep breath and continues.

But she wants it so much. He says. He just couldn't bear to break her heart and tell her anything other than a yes. He closes his mouth then. Men hate it when they get a catch in their throat.

I don't say anything for a while, just hold him, feeling the trembling in his body. Ron's always the joker, the laugher. I'm the one who gets angry and has to go out into the garden and who sometimes has to censor myself three times. He just doesn't have the capacity for anger I do.

And that's what makes him my love, and has helped keep our family together.

But everyone has their limits.

I just put my arms around him and lean into his back. Ron's filled out over the years, and he's taller than me.

I tell him to come with me, and we walk back into the living room, and I just pull him down to the couch with me and we hold each other.

He looks at me, waiting for me to hit him with the "we do not lie" snark, and I just kiss him and tell him that I know why he did it. I know how much he loves our children. I try to smile and it comes out half way, when I let him know that we'll just have to help Ann make certain this promise comes true.

And then we hug as the night passes. We don't talk. There isn't much to say, beyond how much we love each other, and we don't need, to say that.

To be continued.