she felt the use of her legs return and she imagined herself floating on her back on the warm saline waters in a summer night when the iridescence lit the rolling swells and there was no wind and the drift took her further from shore while her body softly rose and fell to the cadence of the pulsing ocean and she knew if she wanted , her body could walk once more but it was no longer necessary in the place she was going , a new satisfying place , and her mere purpose now was to love forever that kathleen and tommy and her son existed until it was their time , until the water tension no longer supported her body and she slid in descending circles to take her place of rest within the sediments of time .