Margaret gripped the stair railing with both hands and counted each step. One. Two. Three.
Six weeks ago, she would have taken them two at a time. But that was before the fall.
It happened on a Tuesday morning last January. Black ice on her front walk. One second she was reaching for the morning paper, the next she was on the ground, staring at a wrist that bent the wrong direction.
The fracture healed. The fear did not.
“I just want to stay in my own home as long as I can,” she told her daughter over the phone. What she did not say: I can hear you and your brother talking about assisted living when you think I’m not listening.
Margaret is 72. She taught third-graders for 34 years. She can still name every state capital. What she cannot do is stop the quiet math running in the back of her mind: her mother fractured a hip at 74. Her aunt at 71. And now, her own wrist.
She started researching bone supplements the way she once graded papers — methodically, with a red pen and a healthy dose of skepticism.
What she found surprised her.