Range of Motion (21 page)

As a nurse, I cared for a number of people who were in comas. And whenever I did, I was struck by an eerie sense of that person being there, unresponsive though they were. It was as if you could feel a presence hovering, a spirit not obtunded at all, but ever vigilant and available. In nursing school, we were taught that hearing was the last sense to go,
and so we were meant to talk to our patients who were in comas, to assume that they could hear us, even if they couldn’t respond. I always felt that it was more than hearing that people in comas were capable of, but I was hard-pressed to say what exactly it was.

One day I was working on my medical-surgical floor when someone I’ll call Helen Larson was admitted. She was a Liz Taylor look-alike, a stunningly beautiful woman with jet-black hair and pale blue eyes. She had complained to her husband of a terrible headache, and then suffered a bleed in her brain that rendered her unconscious. The prognosis was not good.

Day after day, her husband sat at her side, holding her hand, talking to her, running the backs of his fingers down the side of her face. He refused to believe that his beloved would not recover. He put his faith in his wife’s doctors, in us nurses, in the science and art of medicine. But mostly he put his faith in a handkerchief. It was a small white one that he taped above Helen’s bed, right over her head. It was her lucky handkerchief, he said. It would help her get better. I don’t know how many people believed that, but I did. And after many long months, Helen woke up. By then, she had been transferred to a long-term care unit. When we heard the news that Helen Larson had awakened, a few of us nurses who had cared for her went to see her. She was still far from complete recovery; she sat in her wheelchair in a way that looked like she was half folded up. She did not
speak, and her gaze was not particularly steady. But when it was my turn to squat down and look into her eyes, I felt she recognized me. Not by sight, but by something deeper.

On the way back to our unit, one of the nurses said, “She didn’t know us.” But I wasn’t so sure about that. I think Helen knew a lot of things that she might never be able to articulate—not because of her condition, but because those things were more of the spirit world than of the physical one. Crouching there before her, I thought I’d
felt
that knowledge. It was like an old, archaic language that you hear and don’t understand at all but understand anyway. It was like a low whistle of wind in a cave, or a sudden shadow passing over you that makes for a shiver of recognition.

Of such things are novels made, I suppose, or at least they are for me. Years later, I began
Range of Motion
with one goal in mind: I wanted to get inside the head of a person in a coma. So I had my character Jay walk under a huge icicle and get hit by it and rendered unconscious; and I had his wife, Lainey, attend to him with every handkerchief in her arsenal, so to speak. Like Helen’s husband, Lainey refused to believe her spouse would not overcome his circumstances. Despite bouts of despair, she held on to that belief; she was determined to will him back into existence. One of the ways she held on was to continue a silly practice she and her husband had indulged in, one of those things that a couple would be embarrassed to admit to anyone else, but that between them was secretly prized. Every night in bed, Lainey and Jay sang
to each other in a made-up tune about what they had done that day. They called it “Telling Songs,” and it was one of those “little things.”

In the end, the Telling Songs, the apple crisp, the children’s drawings, the soft work shirts, all the myriad things that Lainey brings to her husband’s bedside are what she hopes will make him recover. Let others bring knowledge of anatomy and physiology, of pharmacology and statistics. What Lainey brings to her husband is faith. Hope. And an abiding love.

I wanted to title this book
Telling Songs
. When I shared that idea with a friend, she said, “Oh, you
have
to call it that! Because the Aborigines believe that they
sing
things into
be
ing.” And that is just what Lainey does, in the end, by holding on to their Telling Songs—she hopes the private, everyday ritual will reach Jay, and will help bring him back into being.

I didn’t listen to my friend—or myself. I listened to someone else who told me to title it
Range of Motion
, but I wish I hadn’t. Because this book, like the lessons I believe can be learned when one is unconscious, is more of the spirit world than the physical one, and its title should reflect that. I hope that readers of this book will give themselves over to that world, and let themselves be transported, at least a little, to that luminously strange and mysterious place.

1
. What did the epigraphs mean to you before you read the book? Did they seem to hint at any major themes in
Range of Motion
? How did the meaning of the epigraphs change for you, after you finished the book?

2
. In the Prologue, Lainey says that “sometimes lessons take the crooked path” (
this page
). She says that Jay’s accident was her way of reflecting all of her parts back to her, both “visible and unseen.” What lessons did Lainey take from this “reflection” of all of her parts? What things were revealed to her—about herself, and about her relationships—because of the accident?

3
. Humor plays an important role throughout
Range of Motion
. Despite the deep sadness of Jay’s coma, characters like Alice and Evie, the ghost woman, provide comic relief. Lainey even describes the accident as “Chaplinesque,” and it seems “kind of funny” on first telling. How did you react to the intermingling of sadness and humor throughout the
story? What does it say about the way that Lainey, and perhaps everyone else, deals with the tragedies that interrupt normal, everyday life?

4
. Jays receives “range of motion” every day, so that his body doesn’t “forget” all of the movements it’s capable of. “Remember all that is here for you to use,” Lainey imagines the therapist’s hand telling Jay’s body (
this page
). How is Lainey’s offering of small reminders to Jay (his wallet, the kitchen spices, his soft work shirt) another version of range of motion? To what extent is Lainey giving herself range of motion in the way she goes about her day-to-day activities, while occasionally feeling distant and apart from it all?

5
. The small things that Lainey brings to Jay’s bedside have very tactile qualities: their scents or textures are all unique and powerful. Lainey’s imaginings of Evie have a similarly tactile quality: Lainey vividly conjures up Evie’s clothing, her cooking, her old-fashioned kitchen. What does the specificity of these sights, sounds, smells, and textures say about the power these goods have over us? About the important role they play in our imaginations and memories?

6
. What did you think of the pieces of the narrative told from Jay’s perspective? They tend to be full of fragmented impressions, fleeting observations of things that are occurring in a different world. But Jay also seems vaguely aware of the real-world things happening around him. How do these
real-world things become transformed or changed in Jay’s level of consciousness? What do you make of the abstracted, dreamlike quality of his narratives?

7
. Lainey describes the gesture of giving Jay a little neck massage as “my love, translated” (
this page
). How can we apply this idea of love, translated throughout
Range of Motion
? What are the different ways that love is manifested and translated among the characters? Think of the variety of actions and gestures that reveal the love (or lack thereof) between characters: Lainey and Alice, Alice and Ed, Lainey and her children, and the nursing home employees and residents (Wanda and her patients, and Flozell and his family).

8
. Both Alice and Evie seem to ground Lainey, to remind her of and keep her connected to the rhythms of ordinary life, whether in the present (Alice) or in the past (Evie). How do you think the attitudes and personalities of Alice and Evie can be compared or contrasted? How are they alike or different in the ways they affect Lainey and make her feel?

9
. Lainey fears that she could go “on and on” with her imaginings of Evie, and wonders if it’s her subconscious playing a trick on her, to get her to pay attention to her basic needs (
this page
). Do you think Evie really is a projection of Lainey’s subconscious, or, given that Alice has had “a vision of a woman” (
this page
) too, is there something else going on? Is there some sort of spirit that occupies the house? If
so, how might that connect to Jay’s occupying of another level of reality/consciousness—does it hint at some spirit-world that is present throughout everyday life?

10
. Jay’s asymptote metaphor (
this page
) describes the way two lines, or two humans, can come very, very close, but can never quite touch. What does this mean for Lainey’s relationship with Jay? Does it suggest an inescapable longing and separation that exists between them in the physical world? How does this affect your reading of Lainey’s yearning for a “solid line of connection” (
this page
) between their bodies on the night she sleeps over at the nursing home? And when Jay says that “later, all things would be returned to us” (
this page
), and hints at the longing being fulfilled, what do you think the “later” refers to?

11
. “I know I have a hard time dealing with real life. I know I glorify the past. Alice calls me Nostalgia Woman,” Lainey says (
this page
). How does this nostalgia affect the way Lainey thinks about and copes with Jay’s coma? Does her bringing him little reminders of their past tie in with this nostalgia? How might these feelings help or hinder Lainey in coping with Jay’s coma?

12
. Lainey says that sometimes, sitting beside Jay and “blathering on and on, I get the feeling that my real self has picked up my purse and left” (
this page
). In what way is
Lainey caught between two worlds—the everyday real world, and the world of memory and imagination? If her “real self” gets up and leaves, what part of her is left at Jay’s bedside?

13
. Lainey takes comfort in the story about the squirrels shaking the water from trees: “It suggests that there is a reason for everything, even though it may not be apparent” (
this page
). She also says that she has “great respect for seemingly arbitrary events” (
this page
). Do you think Lainey eventually finds a “reason” for Jay’s seemingly arbitrary accident? If so, what might it be?

14
. After Jay wakes up, and Lainey sees him for the first time, she says “I don’t know the words for this. I only know the feeling. It is over me like a blanket, in me like blood” (
this page
). What do you imagine Lainey is feeling at this moment—what combination of overwhelming emotions?

15
. At the end of the Epilogue, the long list of everyday things (Mozart, love, caterpillars, skyscrapers) is of “the telling songs of the wider life,” and Lainey is “listening with gratitude” (
this page
). How might Lainey perceive or think of these things differently after her experience? What do you think the lesson is in
Range of Motion
, about the importance of the small, everyday things—the small miracles—that make up the texture of a life?

My thanks, as always, to my agent, Lisa Bankoff, and to my editor, Kate Medina, who take such good care of me.

My Tuesday morning writers’ group does everything a writers’ group should, and more. I love them and I appreciate them and I owe them more than I can ever repay.

Jessica Treadway and Bill Kahn were early readers who took time away from busy schedules to give to me, and I appreciate it.

ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS YOU
THE LAST TIME I SAW YOU
HOME SAFE
THE DAY I ATE WHATEVER I WANTED
DREAM WHEN YOU’RE FEELING BLUE
THE HANDMAID AND THE CARPENTER
WE ARE ALL WELCOME HERE
THE YEAR OF PLEASURES
THE ART OF MENDING
SAY WHEN
TRUE TO FORM
ORDINARY LIFE: STORIES
NEVER CHANGE
OPEN HOUSE
ESCAPING INTO THE OPEN: THE ART OF WRITING TRUE
UNTIL THE REAL THING COMES ALONG
WHAT WE KEEP
JOY SCHOOL
THE PULL OF THE MOON
TALK BEFORE SLEEP
DURABLE GOODS
FAMILY TRADITIONS

E
LIZABETH
B
ERG
is the author of many bestselling novels, including
The Last Time I Saw You
,
Home Safe
,
The Year of Pleasures
, and
Dream When You’re Feeling Blue
, as well as two collections of short stories and two works of nonfiction.
Open House
was an Oprah’s Book Club selection,
Durable Goods
and
Joy School
were selected as ALA Best Books of the Year, and
Talk Before Sleep
was short-listed for an ABBY Award. Berg adapted
The Pull of the Moon
into a play. She has been honored by both the Boston Public Library and the Chicago Public Library and is a popular speaker at venues around the country. Her work has been translated into twenty-seven languages. She lives near Chicago.