this made him wispy and unsubstantial, despite his height. James was held together by his preferences, his books and movies, his loud opinions on politics and art.
Jennifer existed to provide shape, to ground this dangling way of living. She had always worked, and always would, she said, even when there was no need. The need, as she saw it, was on the other side, from the severely handicapped adults to whom she administered physical therapy at a rehab centre. James had never asked her to describe her week. Rarely did anyone inquire about those men and women (slippery tongued, pants wet – James turned away from the image), but they loomed somehow, shadowy in the vastness of the house. The knowledge of Jennifer’s hands on their gnarled bodies every day, morning to night, was a relief to all who visited there, pleased to know that some sense of purpose still propelled this couple through their days.
Right after the accident, Jennifer had sent James links to papers on the importance of physical rehabilitation during “coma vigil,” a new phrase for Sarah’s unroused sleep. James had been grateful, and was reassured by a nurse that yes, every day, they were moving Sarah’s limp arms and legs as often as they should be. But it was “coma vigil” that stayed with him. His vigil was for Finn. James was keeping watch over Finn while Sarah lay in her darkness, enduring other women’s hands rearranging her scarecrow limbs, while her son was someone else’s devotional object.
Mike and Jennifer sat on the couch, and Jennifer stretched her legs into Mike’s lap. Ana, James noticed, was far from him, the only one who had not taken a seat on the wide curved couch. She sat across from them in a stiff-backed brocade covered chair, each arm at right angles on the armrests, her fingers curled over the edges
“How’s work, Jennifer?” asked Ana. “How are the cutbacks?”
She continued that way, pulling information from the two of them with her concise questions, murmuring support. It looked like warmth, or inquisitiveness, but James recognized it as a sort of vacancy, too, a way of passing the substance of the interaction to someone else.
Ana was feeling massive, as if the chair could barely contain her. Jennifer had this effect on her. She was trying not to glance at her sister-in-law’s tiny feet in their childlike grey striped socks, now being massaged casually by Mike’s hands. He pushed and pulled as he told them about their Christmas plans in Mexico, a beach house that they should come visit. These kinds of holiday invitations were always extended only once, and never accepted nor rejected nor brought up again by anyone.
“And you, Jimmy, how’s the book?” asked Mike. James had wanted a brother who would put him in headlocks and throw him to the floor and kick his ass, someone with badness to worship. But Mike shrugged at James’s schemes of revenge against the asshole down the street; he was too old to join a united front, and he preferred the computer. He sat. In James’s recollection of their youth, his brother is always seated in his desk chair, in front of the computer. Only the changed colour of his T-shirt indicates that he does, in fact, rise on occasion, and mark the passing of the days.
James was beginning to regret the way he had framed his firing. He had done too good a job of blocking the horror by inserting this distracting fantasy of a book. There was not enough sympathy for him, he felt, not enough commiseration over the shortness of his stick.
“It’s okay. Tough times in publishing, with the economy. Not a lot of new contracts,” he said.
“You don’t have a contract?” Mike raised his thick eyebrows. “I didn’t know that.” He looked then at Ana, as if seeing her as something new: imperative to his brother’s survival.
“Let’s not talk about work!” said Jennifer. “How is parenthood? At long last! Do you absolutely love it?” She lowered her voice: “Come on, can I ask that?”
“Jenn—” said Mike, flicking her toe with his finger.
“What? Come on. We know you guys were trying. The circumstances aren’t ideal, of course, but now you get to be a mom and dad! You get to parent!” Ana noted the verb: “to parent.” Something to do, not to be.
“I know this is going to sound weird, but Ana, he really looks like you! It’s crazy! You have exactly the same eyes.”
“Really?” said Ana. “Well, they’re brown,