A New Routine
Chapter ten
Annette
The following Monday I walk into the rehab section of Frostholm Medical Center. It’s the first day of my postgraduate sports rehabilitation fellowship that I'd accepted months ago.
I'd known this day was coming. What I don't know is whether Jamie Walker has been assigned here. Statistically he probably has.
Walker Rehabilitation manages nearly every major professional sports injury in the region.
Still...there are no guarantees. I tell myself it doesn't matter. I'll treat whoever walks through the door. That's the job.
Even so, when I log into the patient schedule my eyes immediately search for one name.
I don't mean them to. They do anyway.
Walker, Jamie. 10:00 a.m. Periodic rehabilitation evaluation.
I stare at the screen and smile.
Today... he continues taking his life back.
Frostholm Medical Center looks exciting, like it’s going to be another important step in my education.
I walk in with a badge clipped to my jacket, a travel mug in one hand, and a folder of rotation paperwork tucked beneath my arm. I belong here. At least for the next several months.
The lobby rises around me in glass and pale stone, sunlight spilling across polished floors as staff move in familiar morning patterns.
Medicine always begins before most people finish their first cup of coffee.
I pause just long enough to take it in. Not because I’m nervous, but because I want to remember this.
Postgraduate rotations are competitive enough without choosing one of the most respected rehabilitation programs in the region. Frostholm’s Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation rotation had been the one I circled in my application packet before I allowed myself to want it.
Sports rehabilitation.
Orthopedic recovery.
Neurological restoration.
Complex trauma.
Patients learning how to return to lives that might never look completely the same but could still become whole again.
That’s what drew me here. Rehabilitation gives people their lives back.
I remember the conversation I had with Jamie, telling him why I chose it and how quietly and intensely he listened to my explanation.
The thought slips in before I can stop it.
I tighten my grip around the coffee cup.
Today is my first morning at Frostholm Medical Center’s outpatient sports rehabilitation clinic, and I am not going to start it thinking about a certain stubborn hockey captain who refuses to press call buttons, loves mushrooms, and somehow remembers every person he meets.
I have work to do. I take the elevator to the rehabilitation wing.
The doors open to a different kind of medicine. No overhead codes. No rolling stretchers. No antiseptic panic.
Instead, sunlight fills a therapy gym through a wall of windows.
I smile. Yes. This. This is exactly where I want to be.
“Annette Whittier?”
I turn. A woman in navy scrubs walks toward me with a tablet tucked against her hip and a smile that somehow manages to be warm and brisk at the same time.
“I’m Elise Morgan, lead therapist for outpatient sports rehab.”
I shake her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“We’re glad to have you. I’ve heard good things.”
“That makes one of us.”
She laughs. “Good. A sense of humor helps around here.”
“I’ll try to keep mine functional.”
“Excellent. We’ll test it by noon.”
She leads me past the front desk and into a small charting area overlooking the gym. The space is bright, efficient, and already moving. Two therapists review schedules. A medical assistant stocks supplies. Someone has taped a handwritten note above the printer.
PLEASE STOP THREATENING THE PRINTER. IT RESPONDS TO KINDNESS.
Below it, someone else has added...
DOES IT, THOUGH?
I like this place immediately.
Elise hands me a tablet.
“Your login is set. We’ll ease you in today. Observation first, then you’ll assist with assessments and guided therapeutic work under supervision.”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Famous last words.”
I smile as I take the tablet. “Patient list?”
“Already loaded.”
She steps beside me and points through the screen.
“Mostly post-op orthopedic patients this morning. Rotator cuff repair, ACL reconstruction, ankle fracture, one lumbar disc case, and...”
She pauses. Not long. Just enough.
I look down. The second name on my list stares back at me.
Walker, Jamie.
My thumb stills on the edge of the tablet. For one absurd second, I simply stare at the screen like the letters might rearrange themselves into someone else.
They don’t. Jamie Walker. Postoperative clavicle repair. Rib fractures. Resolving pneumothorax.
Initial outpatient rehabilitation assessment.
My mouth does something traitorous. It smiles. I catch it immediately. Stop that.
Elise notices because apparently everyone in rehabilitation is trained to see what people try to hide.
“Oh?”
I glance up. “What?”
“You two know each other?”
“We’ve...met.”
Her expression brightens with the kind of curiosity that makes me immediately wary.
“Met?”
“I was on the arena emergency medical team when he was injured.”
“And?”
“I followed his hospital care for several days in Riverton before he was flown back to his home team.”
“That explains the smile.”
“I didn’t smile.”
“You absolutely did.”
“I was recognizing a patient.”
“Mm-hmm.”
I look back at the tablet because screens are safer than amused supervising therapists.
“He’s scheduled at ten?”
“Yes. First outpatient appointment. He worked with his team therapist for a few days.”
“Is he cleared for active motion?”
“Not yet. Surgeon’s orders are cautious. Evaluation, pain control, education, gentle mobility within restriction, posture, breathing support, and beginning functional adaptation.”
“Good.”
Elise studies me. “You sound relieved.”
“I’m familiar with his tendency to negotiate.”
“That bad?”
I think of Jamie trying to carry a breakfast tray down the hall because the staff looked busy.
The water glass.
The T-shirt.
The call button he wouldn’t press.
The way he thanked every person on the floor before leaving.
“No,” I say quietly. “Not bad.”
Elise waits as I scroll through the restrictions.
“No driving. No lifting. No skating. No resistance work. Sling protocol. Pendulums only as tolerated. Rib precautions.”
“Sounds like you already know him.”
A small laugh slips out before I can stop it. “I know the injury.”
“Not what I said.”
I look up. Elise smiles, then mercifully lets the subject go.
“Clinic tour?”
“Yes, please.”
For the next hour, I learn the rhythm of the department. The charting stations, the supply closet, private evaluation rooms, the gym schedule, and the coffee machine that no one trusts but everyone uses.
I meet therapists, aides, nurses, techs, and front-desk staff whose names I repeat silently after hearing them because names matter.
Jamie’s voice drifts through my memory. People deserve to be known.
I pause beside the therapy bands. My chest tightens in a way I refuse to examine too closely.
Professional boundaries exist for a reason. I know that. I respect that. Jamie Walker is a patient.
A memorable patient. A kind patient. A patient whose recovery I happen to understand better than most because I watched the first painful days of it.
That is all.
At 9:57, the front doors slide open. I know it before I look, not because of commotion. There isn’t any.
No cameras. No entourage. No jersey. Just a man in dark jeans, winter boots, and a gray sweatshirt, his left arm secured in a sling beneath a heavy coat.
Jamie pauses inside the entrance, and for a moment, he doesn’t see me.
He takes in the gym first.
The tables.
The equipment.
The patients.
The people working hard at movements most of the world takes for granted.
Without the helmet, the uniform, the arena lights, and the stitched C on his chest, he looks simply human. His hair is a little mussed from the winter wind. His face is still pale beneath the healing bruises. He stands like a man trying not to show how much the drive cost him.
When his gaze finds mine, he stops. A slow smile touches his mouth. Not the polite smile he gives staff. Not the public smile people expect from a professional athlete.
This one is quieter. Relieved. “Annette.”
My name in his voice should not feel familiar. It does anyway.
“Mr. Walker.”
His smile deepens. “Back to that?”
“We’re in a clinic.”
“So, we’re pretending you haven’t threatened me with paperwork?”
“I don’t threaten.”
Elise coughs softly beside me. I remember she exists. That seems important.
Jamie’s eyes shift to her. “Elise Morgan.” She offers a hand. “So, you remember me then.”
He shakes it with presence and respectful eye contact.
“Of course. Jamie.”
“I know.”
He winces faintly. “Right. Sorry.”
“No apology necessary. Around here, everyone gets to be a patient.”
His expression changes just a little, in a way I understand. “Good,” he says.
And I believe him.
Elise gestures toward the evaluation rooms. “We’ll start in Room Two.”
Jamie nods.
I notice the moment he almost reaches for the door with his injured side.
He stops himself.
Switches hands. Small adjustment. Small frustration. Small victory.
He thinks no one sees.
I do.
Room Two is warm and quiet, with one treatment table, two chairs, and a window overlooking the snowy courtyard. Jamie lowers himself into the chair instead of the table, which is smart. Chairs feel less clinical. Less vulnerable.
Elise reviews the plan while I open his chart. There is no rushing. No excessive reassurance. Just clear expectations.
“Today is not about pushing limits,” Elise says. “It’s about establishing your baseline.”
Jamie nods.
“Baseline.”
“That means we see where you are now.”
“Not where I want to be.”
“Exactly.”
His eyes flick toward me. “Did you warn her?”
“No.”
Elise smiles. “She didn’t have to.”
Jamie exhales, and for the first time since he walked in, some of the tension leaves his shoulders.
We begin gently on posture, breathing, scapular positioning, and hand and wrist motion.
Tiny things. Humbling things. It’s the kind of work that looks almost laughably easy until a body reminds you that it is healing from trauma.
Jamie follows every instruction. Carefully. Maybe too carefully.
His jaw tightens when pain hits.
His breath catches when his ribs object.
He doesn’t complain.
That worries me more than complaining would.
Elise measures a small range of movement, then nods.
“That’s enough.”
Jamie looks at her.
“We just started.”
“We started exactly as much as your body needs today.”
“I can do more.”
“Probably.”
That gets his attention. Elise continues. “That doesn’t mean you should.”
His eyes shift to me. I keep my face neutral.
He studies me for half a second, then looks back at Elise. “I’m sensing a theme.”
“A good one,” I say.
He almost smiles. Almost.
Elise has him stand for the next exercise, a simple weight shift. By the third repetition, sweat beads near his temple.
His face stays composed, but his body tells the truth anyway.
Frustration gathers around him. Not anger.
Grief.
There it is.
The thing I didn’t fully see in the hospital because pain and medication covered it.
Jamie isn’t frustrated because this hurts. He’s frustrated because a few inches of safe movement now require the same focus he once used to win faceoffs in front of thousands of people.
He has always been the strongest man in the room.
Today, strength looks like stopping.
Elise lowers the clipboard. “Good. That’s where we’ll end that one.”
Jamie’s fingers flex once at his side. “I can do one more.”
I step closer. “Jamie.”
He turns. “Nobody skates a full game with one stride.”
For a second, he just looks at me. Then the corner of his mouth lifts.
“You make those up as you go?”
“Sometimes.”
“I knew it.”
“I also know hockey players.”
“That part is becoming obvious.”
His first real smile of the day appears. Small. Tired.
But real.
The tension eases from the room. Elise looks between us with the kind of expression that says she is filing away more than clinical information.
I pretend not to notice.
Jamie sits again, careful and slow.
This time, when Elise says we’re done, he doesn’t argue.
He only nods.
That nod may be the biggest victory of the morning.