Range of Motion by Elizabeth Berg

I always feel like there’s a reason. I never feel tired the next day. I just go with it—get up for a while, then go back to bed. My dad was like that. I think he got up almost every night, just took stock of things, then went back to sleep. I liked that he did that. It made me feel safe. Plus I was always sort of hoping he was thinking of me, reviewing my excellent qualities, thinking how lucky he was that he had me and what he would like to buy me.”
    “He
was
lucky to have you,” I say. “Didn’t he ever tell you that?”
    She takes a sip of tea, looks up at me. “Yes. He told me that a lot. That’s what accounts for my extremely good mental health. For my
nice
ness. Aren’t I nice, Lainey?” She pats the place beside her.
    I sit down. I’m not sure about the edge I’ve just heard in her voice. I suppose she might be a little angry at me by now,tired of giving. Even in the best of friendships and even under the most dire circumstances, the One will at some point get tired of giving to the Other. She will sigh behind her sympathy, clench her fists behind her back. I understand that. “You must be about worn out, helping me,” I say.
    “It’s not that,” Alice says. She looks over at me. “It’s not.”
    “Okay.”
    I wait, but she doesn’t offer me more. I drink my tea, survey the line of black trees along our block. The leaves have come out a little more, you can see some progress every day now. It’s such a forgiving time. There’s something vaguely religious about it. Soon the trees will meet in the middle of the street, forming a high canopy, which is another good thing about living here. On a hot summer day, you turn down our street and feel like you’re entering a cool, green tunnel. And though you know it’s not true, you believe no one else has this.
    “You know, Alice,” I say, “I’m positive Jay’s going to wake up. I know it. It’s just a matter of time. And when he does, I’m going away. I’m going on vacation. To Bermuda. And he can just stay home and try to do everything, like I’m doing now. He can see how he likes it.”
    Alice stares straight ahead, nodding. “Yeah. Be gone a good month or so. Don’t call, either.”
    “Oh, I’m not. I’m not going to call or send a postcard or one thing. He can just suffer.”
    “Right.”
    It is quiet then, and the two of us sit and hold our mugs, thinking our own thoughts. There’s a very bright moon, a black cloud across it that looks like a floating negligee. Werewolf moon. Black-magic moon. I feel a slight breeze move up under my nightgown and I close my legs together, pull the fabric tighter around me, then push my face into my lap. “I can’t think that he’s not going to come back.” My voice is muffled like we’re playing a game. Like I’m counting to one hundred before I can find anyone. “I have to act like there’s no question that he’s coming back.”
    “I know, Lainey,” she says quietly. “I know that.”
    I raise my head, look at her. “So that’s what I do sometimes, I make up these fantasies, think about punishing him. I think about revenge! It’s so stupid!”
    “It’s not stupid,” Alice says. “I understand. I think anyone would. You need relief from pain. Anger’s good. Anger works. Be angry. He won’t know. You’re not hurting him.”
    I’m not so sure. I wonder sometimes if he’s lying there thinking, “Lainey, don’t. I can’t help it.”
    Alice puts her arm across my shoulders and squeezes a little. I have a vision, suddenly, of the two of us, as though my eyes have left my body to look down on earthbound figures casting moon shadows and sitting in their nightgowns on the wooden front steps of a house that has seen hundreds of lives come and go and still offers no comment. It’s one of those eerie times of seeing myself from both the inside and out; a breathless moment, like catching a floater on your eyethe right way, so that it holds still, and you can look at it. Your eye