30 Pieces of a Novel by Stephen Dixon Page B

puts his forehead against hers, gets them both into the opening position, and shoots a leg out and she does too, and they keep shooting their legs out together doing the tango till they get to the end of the room, swivel around, and in the same position do the same steps back, and he says, “This is almost I-don’t-know-what,” and she says, “It’s more than that—it’s miraculous, but I still have to pee,” and walks into the bathroom, door stays open as it always did when she went in with the walker or wheelchair, grabs the toilet-chair arms he installed, then says, “What am I doing? I don’t need these,” and lets go of them and pees, gets up, wipes herself—“Look at me, wiping while standing, something I never do anymore … I want to do all the things I haven’t done since I really got hit with the disease,” and goes into the bedroom and gets a shirt with buttons and puts it on and buttons it up, puts her sneakers on and ties the laces, goes outside and walks around the house and then into the field and picks lots of wildflowers and brings them back and gets on her knees in the kitchen and pulls out a vase deep in back of the cabinet under the sink and sticks the flowers in and fills the vase with water, then says, “I want to do some gardening, not have you or the kids do it all for me,” and goes outside and crouches by the flower bed that lines the front of the house and pulls up weeds, waters the plants, snaps off a flower, and sticks it in her hair; when it falls out she catches it with one hand and sticks it back, says, “See that? When I caught it I didn’t smash it with my hands. I want a real workout now,” and does warm-up exercises and then runs down their road, probably all the way to the main road and on it; anyway, she comes back in a half hour with the mail—“Got it all myself, even opened one of the envelopes to me without tearing the flap to shreds … but I’ll read it later. Who cares about mail now? I’m sweating like crazy and want to shower, but without holding on to the grab bars and sitting in the tub with the hand spray,” and goes into the house and showers standing up; he watches what little he can see of her where she didn’t pull the shower curtain closed and then undresses and steps under the shower with her, and she says, “Please, grateful as I am for what you did before and what you’ve done the last few years, covering for me with the kids, et cetera, this could be dangerous, two of us in a slippery tub. It’d be ridiculous for it all to end now with a terrific fall. But more than that, I just want to shower the first time like this by myself,” and he steps out, she soaps and rinses herself several more times and then shampoos—“Whee, this is fun and I feel so cool”—and gets out, dries herself, and dresses—“Now I want to try reading without glasses, since my awful eyesight was brought on by the disease too”—and opens a book—“I can read as well as I used to, I think”—sits down at her desk and types and says, “It’s no strain, fingers feel free and flexible, and I can type with more than one finger at a time, though I’m a little rusty at it … . I’m going to get some work done while I can, in two hours do what I couldn’t in ten, or even twenty,” and works a few hours, takes a break to make them lunch and eat, and after she works at her desk another hour she stands and says, “Oh, brother, my lower back aches but I’m sure this time only from typing so long and hard. This is great. I don’t know what you did or how you did it, Gould, but you certainly did,” and starts stretching till her fingers touch their opposite toes, and he says, “As a reward, other than for seeing you like this … ahem, ahem, excuse me, but just as a reward for all