Range of Motion (15 page)

“Yeah, I guess,” he says. And then, “Well, I haven’t been coming quite as much.”

“Oh.”

“I can’t … Jesus, you know, I just don’t think I can do this anymore. Come every day, aching for her to wake up, seeing that she doesn’t and she doesn’t and she doesn’t.”

I stare into my coffee.

“Lainey, I’ve gotten involved with someone else.”

“Uh-huh.” I don’t look up. I don’t want to be here anymore. Where is my purse? I shift my feet, feel it beside me.

“Do you think that’s terrible?”

“No!” I say. And then, looking up at him, “I don’t know, Ted. What do you want me to say?”

“I just need to talk to someone, Lainey. I guess it’s awful, what I’m doing. But this woman knows if Jeannie wakes up, it’s all over. She knows that. She just … she cooks at my house sometimes, she makes dinner for us and we … It’s a kind of service, you know? She’s lonely; I’m lonely. It’s like that.”

“If it feels okay to you, Ted, then I guess it’s okay for you. For me, I … just wouldn’t do it.”

“But for how long? Jeannie’s not going to wake up, Lainey. I love her. I love the memory of her. But she’s not going to wake up.”

“Who said that? Did Pat Swanson tell you that? Who told you that?”

“God, who hasn’t?”

“Well, you don’t have to accept it. I don’t accept it about Jay. I believe he will wake up.”

“Maybe he will. He doesn’t have the same kind of injury that Jeannie does. They never did promise me anything, but I kept hoping.…”

I know what Ted wants. He wants a woman who has seen his wife to say she forgives him his need for another woman. I’m not sure I have that much generosity in me.

“Do you talk to Jeannie?” I ask.

“Yes.” He sighs. “Well, not so much anymore. I don’t know what to say anymore. I’m so … amazingly tired, Lainey.”

I nod, and suddenly I’m not mad at him anymore. “I know,” I say. “I’m tired too. When you get that tired, you get sort of crazy, don’t you think? I mean, I’ve been—well, I’ve been …”

He waits, and I hear myself say quietly, “I’ve been hallucinating.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve done that,” he says. “I’ve seen Jeannie lots of times. She passes through rooms, I see her in the
corners, I hear her voice, I feel her beside me in bed. She touches the back of my neck, I swear I feel her fingers there.”

“I haven’t seen Jay. But I feel his presence. I mean, I feel him there when I talk to him.”

“Do you really?”

“Yes.”

He sighs. “I wish so hard I would. But when I talk to her, I feel as though I’m standing in front of the ocean, throwing out words to nothing.”

“Maybe you’re just so exhausted—”

“No,” he says. “It’s been like that since this first happened. I’ve never felt she heard me since the day she came back from her surgery. I don’t feel any connection. And I feel so guilty, I feel like I’m just doing it wrong. But I don’t know what to do. I feel like my life has no balance. I feel desperate, I just—” He stops, looks at me, waiting. Asking. Say the handcuffs he wore were visible. They’d be made of flesh.

All right. All right. “So what does she make you for dinner?” I ask. “Is she a good cook?” I lean back to listen. I know that my job is to tell him it’s all right and I intend to do that. Next time will be my turn. Next time, I’ll ask him if what I’m doing is all right: listening to a ghost woman talk, seeing her everywhere in my house. Maybe he’ll say, “Seeing ghosts, having affairs, what’s the difference? It’s all to do the same thing, isn’t it? It’s all to get from ten o’clock to eleven.”

*   *   *

On the way out, I collect the kids from the day room. Flozell wheels along behind them. “Thanks for baby-sitting again,” I tell him.

“That’s all right,” he says. “I like kids. It’s when they older you got trouble. These kids told me they ain’t about to grow up. We friends for life.”

“Good,” I say.

“How’s Jay?”

“Oh, he’s … you know, he’s about the same.”

“Can I meet him?”

“Can you meet him?”

“That’s what I heard myself say.”

“Well, he … I mean, he doesn’t exactly respond.”

“Yeah, I know. But I like to say a few words to him. Why don’t you take me there. Just be a minute.”

I say nothing, and then he tells the kids, “Y’all wait here. We be right back.” He begins wheeling quickly down the hall toward Jay’s room. When he arrives, he waits for me outside the door.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Just let me come in a minute. Introduce us.”

I look into Flozell’s face, see a kind of honest earnestness I haven’t witnessed outside of children. “Oh, all right,” I say. “Come on.”

Flozell follows me in, wheels up to the side of the bed. Jay is on his back, hands arranged over his stomach. “Jay,” I say. “There’s someone here I’d like you to meet. Who’d like
to meet you. This is Flozell.” I turn to Flozell, say quietly, “I’m sorry. I forgot your last name.”

“Smith,” he says, disgustedly. “How you forget that?”

“Sorry,” I say, and then, to Jay, “Flozell Smith.”

A little moment, and then Flozell wheels closer, takes Jay’s hand. “My man,” he says, gently. And then says nothing, just stays there, looking into Jay’s face. I step back, look at the massive hulk of Flozell holding the thinning hand of my husband, and I want to weep. I cannot for the life of me say the particular reason why.

W
hen I come home, Ed is sitting out on the porch. I nod at him, start to walk past. “Lainey?”

“Yeah!” My voice is brittle with brightness.

“Want to take a walk?”

“Well, you know, I just got home.”

“Just for a few minutes.”

I want to say how difficult this would be, but it wouldn’t be. It’s still early. Amy and Timothy are at his house. Sarah won’t be home for another half hour.

“All right,” I say. “Just let me tell Alice.”

“She knows.”

Great. “Oh. Well, then.”

He stands up, tucks his shirt in.

“I’ll just put my purse away,” I say. “It’s too heavy.”

“Right.”

I go inside, notice the message light blinking, play it back with my hands clenched into fists. It’s only Dolly. I push the save button, stop listening. Later.

Just before I go out the door, I think about calling Alice, to whisper, This is it. We’re going for a walk. Want me to say anything in particular? I almost do, but then decide no, I’ll talk to her later. After it’s over.

I close the door behind me, smile falsely at Ed as we walk down the porch steps. I have an awful sensation, much like that of being disappointed by a blind date. In situations like this, the core that is your real self stays behind, feeling sorry for you, waiting for you to come back and reenter yourself.

“Don’t be so nervous,” Ed says.

“I’m not!”

He looks at me.

“Well, I mean … Okay. Fine.”

Nothing for a little while, except the soft sound of our shoes on the sidewalk. I notice that I am thirty-five years old and still avoid the cracks. I hope my mother appreciates this.

“I thought maybe the park,” Ed says.

“Well, I was thinking more … you know, just around the block. I need to return some calls. I have to get back.”

We pass a bus stop, and Ed gestures toward the bench. “Can we just sit here for a minute?”

I sit down, turn expectantly toward him.

“You know what I want to talk about, right?”

“I guess.”

“I’m not doing what she thinks, Lainey.” I nod.

“I’m really not.”

“Okay.”

“I get … I don’t know, removed, sometimes. I know that. I’m kind of hard to reach. But it’s just a mood. I’m not seeing anyone. I love Alice.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’d like you to try to help me, Lainey. I don’t want her to think there’s someone else.”

“Well. I kind of think that’s your job, Ed.”

“But she doesn’t believe me!”

“I have to tell you, Ed. I’m really uncomfortable about this whole thing. I mean, talking to you. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to tell you. Alice thinks you’re having an affair. I asked how she knew and she said she could just tell. She didn’t give me any details.”

“All right, I’ve been working more hours. That’s the only thing.”

“She didn’t say that.”

“She doesn’t know that. I don’t want her to know that. She doesn’t know where I’ve been. I’m … Listen, Lainey, I know you’re good friends. But I have to tell you something now that I don’t want you to tell her.”

“I don’t think I can promise you that.”

“Please. Listen. I’m working more hours for a reason. It’s … It’s because I want to save enough so we can buy a house. She really wants a house, and I’ve almost got enough. I want to surprise her. That’s all.”

“I see.” I don’t think Alice wants a house. She would have told me. She likes where she lives. She wouldn’t even move to the farm.

“All right?”

“Yes, all right.”

“So can you sort of … I don’t know, can you just tell her that I’m not involved with another woman? I swear it’s true. I swear it. I don’t want her to … I don’t want her to have to suffer like this.”

“I don’t think she’s
suffering
, Ed.”

“Well, I think she is.”

He’s right, of course. I just don’t want him to know it. I want him to think her broken heart is the equivalent of a hangnail, that losing him will be a passing inconvenience like having to switch laundry detergents. What is this talk for? What can he be thinking? That I’ll walk back to the house and invite Alice over and defend him because he told me to?

“Ed?” I hate his name. I hate the name Ed. It’s too short. The letters are ugly together. The name sounds like you’re starting to say something and a fishbone catches in your throat. That’s what I’ll tell Alice, that we had a talk and I hate his stupid name.

“Why do you love Alice?” I ask.

“Pardon?”

“I said, ‘Why do you love Alice?’ ”

He laughs. “Well, why do you?”

“That’s not the question.”

“Well, I … I think that’s kind of personal, Lainey. Frankly, I find it odd that you ask.”

“Never mind,” I say. “Sorry.” I find it odd that he can’t answer. Alice is right. He’s lying.

The message is from Dolly, asking me to call her on Monday, she’s got an idea for me. A plan for working at home. That’s not a bad idea. It’s May already. I think Jay’s benefits decrease dramatically mid-month. I’ve got to find out. I’ve been thinking it’s beside the point, what the benefits are. But maybe it’s not. Maybe I’d better find out about long-range benefits. Maybe I’d better see if Frank can let me work full-time. Maybe Jay will lie there and lie there and lie there and lie there. Or not. Maybe he will not keep lying there. Maybe he’ll die. Is this it? Is this the time just before I become a widow working full-time at Beverage World, finding gray hairs at my temples one morning and turning from the bathroom mirror to show no one? I hear the screen door bang shut and I’m so glad Amy’s home. I will ask her to sit on my lap and I will braid her hair. Things like that help, when you feel suddenly made of glass, when if it weren’t for your sorrow you’d start screaming.

Ten fifty-five. The kids are in bed, asleep, I think. I don’t want to check because if they’re not asleep I don’t have the energy to do anything about it. I made Amy go to the bathroom twice before bed. I’m tired of her wetting the bed. The second time, I leaned against the doorjamb, watching her, and heard Evie’s voice in my ear. “A teaspoon of honey will help her. It’ll attract and hold the fluid. She’ll wake up dry.” And here is the dream world I live in now: when Amy came out of the bathroom, I brought her down into the kitchen with me and gave her a teaspoon of honey as though the pediatrician had called me, saying, “You know what works?”

“Why do I have to take this?” Amy asked.

“To help you sleep,” I said. And then Sarah, who was at the table watching, said, “What about me?” and I gave her a teaspoon, too. Couldn’t hurt. My children love taking medicine, even when it tastes terrible. It’s very unusual. I worry about it. They probably can’t wait to grow up and be hypochondriacs.

Now I make myself a cup of tea, sit at the kitchen table, look across from me and here she is again, her simultaneously vague and too-real presence.

“Go away,” I say, so quietly I’m not sure I’ve said it.

She stares at me with a calm kind of compassion, and I put my hands over my face, squeeze my eyes shut hard.

I hear a noise and look up, expecting her to be over at the sink, doing something useful. But it is not Evelyn Arlene Benson, ghost of a woman who lived here and now does
not—but does anyway. It is Alice, letting herself in the back door.

“I saw your light,” she says, sitting down.

I nod, then remember that I haven’t spoken to her since I talked to Ed. “So. You ready?”

She nods.

“You want me to tell the truth?”

She nods again.

“I think he’s … I think you’re right.”

“Did he say anything about her?”

“No. He denied it.”

“How? What did he say, exactly?”

I think for a moment, and realize that I don’t remember. There is a point at which a muscle simply will not work any longer, and I feel as though my brain is like that lately, that what I need is to let it alone for a good long while.

“That bad, huh?” Alice says.

“No, it’s … You know, Alice, I’m having a hard time remembering. I’ve been having some things happen that make me think … Well, never mind. I remember. He said he was being distant, he knew that. He said he does that sometimes. But that he isn’t seeing anyone. He’s just working more. He wants to save money to … Well, he wants to buy you something. That’s what he said. He’s working more to buy you something and he’s not fooling around. And oh, he loves you.”

“He said that?”

“Yes.”

She chews at her lip, thinks a little. Then, “Buy what? What’s he going to buy?”

“Well, I don’t know if I should tell you, Alice. I mean, what if he’s telling the truth?”

“Then I’ll be happy.”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me.”

“All right, fine. He said he was going to buy you a house. That you wanted a house.”

Quiet, except for the low hum of the refrigerator. She looks frozen, staring off into space.