I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop; it didn’t seem likely that Char would get through the entire process of healing without some emotional wounds erupting. Physically, she’s done very well, and on the surface anyone looking at her would assume that emotionally and psychologically she was healing just as quickly.

Physical trauma is easier to recover from; you let your body do the things for which it is designed, you rest when you need to and push through the pain when appropriate, and eventually it will heal as much as it is capable of healing. The mind is trickier. The wounds inflicted upon the psyche are often so deep that they’re almost invisible, and it can take a long time for them to surface.

I did not realistically expect that there would be no emotional fallout from the accident and I have been trying to keep a close watch (without being overbearing) on her moods, things that frighten her and things that startle her. The first indication that those ghosts were beginning to filter through came a few days ago, when we approached a busy intersection and a car approaching from our right did not slow until the last possible moment. We were already moving; she saw the other car out of the corner of her eye and flinched hard, and as soon as I’d driven through the intersection she asked me to pull over.

Had any of the kids been with us, she would likely have sucked it up, but they were at home; I pulled over to give her time to regroup and the only thing I could possibly do in that situation was to hold her until she was ready to push on. A few minutes and a few deep breaths later, and she said she was fine.

Today I was on the dojang’s main training floor working on self defense tactics with a small group of students when Alex barreled through the door in soaking wet shorts. He didn’t have to say anything because I knew he had been helping his mother in the pool and he is keenly aware of the rules regarding appropriate dress outside the locker room and the pool area; that he had run in half dressed and wet was enough to push me off the floor and towards the pool, leaving Alex to deal with getting TK to finish the class.

She was still in the pool, rooted in place halfway down the lane she’d been walking in. She couldn’t take another step and felt like she was choking on her own breath. It wasn’t quite a full blown panic attack, but it was viscerally paralyzing. I know enough to understand that this might be the only level of emotional backlash that she’ll suffer, but also enough to understand that this could be the tip of the PTS iceberg.

My gut reaction is gender-typical: fix it. Do anything to make it better, even though I know I can’t. At this stage all I can do is ask her what she needs from me, and do it, even if it means jumping into the pool in a TKD uniform.