“It does feel like Europe,” Jim agreed, his jaw tightening.
Jim never spoke of the time he spent overseas serving in the Great War. He and Jean married shortly after he came back from Europe. Betty remembered little from when he returned home because she had been so young, but she could still summon sober-faced conversations between Jean and her parents in the days before the wedding and the word shell-shocked being whispered repeatedly.
“I suppose our experiences in Europe must have been very different,” she said.
Jim stared through the park, lost in thought. “Say, what would you think about trying to run again?”
“No.”
“You won’t even consider it?”
Betty shook her head. Since ending things with Bill, she had tried to push all thoughts of running from her mind. “I don’t run anymore.”
“But maybe it would be good for you. I’ll help. We can go out together in the mornings before we leave for work.”
Suddenly Betty felt overwhelmingly tired. “Jim, simply getting to the train every day is a struggle. Everything still hurts. I can’t.”
“But what if it makes you feel better?”
Betty let out a strangled laugh. She shifted in her seat and her spine made a cracking sound. “Haven’t you noticed? I’m trapped in the body of an eighty-year-old.”
“I know it might hurt at first, but maybe getting those muscles moving again could help. You’ve had a tough go of it, but you could run again if you put your mind to it.”
Betty was about to snap at him, tell him to mind his own business, but something held her back. About two years ago, Dr. Minke had told her she might never walk again, but he had underestimated her. He’d also told her she’d never run again, but what if he was wrong? She lifted her legs from the ground in front of her, flexed her toes, and then pointed them, feeling the tendons along her calves and shins contract and elongate. What was the worst thing that could happen if she tried?
She looked up at Jim and found him watching her. “Think about it,” he said. “I’ve got to get back to my office, but I’ll see you later.”
THAT EVENING WHEN she climbed into bed, she couldn’t stop thinking about what Jim had suggested. He had planted a seed and its roots were already threading through her, tendrils curling around her insides like pea vines. She could practically feel her mind rewiring to consider the idea, but risking the disappointment of failure scared her. She fell into an uneasy sleep.
A persistent knocking at the door awakened her. It was dark, the house quiet. She lifted her head from the pillow, looking around her bedroom in confusion.
“Mother?” she whispered.
From outside the door, a scuffling sound.
“No, Betty, it’s me, Jim.”
Jim? Even in the foggy recesses of her mind, this was the last answer she expected. She rolled to her side, wincing at the pain that shot down her hip toward her feet. Inhaling deeply, she swung her legs off the bed to plant her feet on the floor. The first few steps of the morning always challenged her the most. The stiffness and tenderness of her lower back tended to render her speechless at first. She pushed to standing, grimacing with the pops and cracks in her joints as she straightened and then staggered toward the door and opened it to find Jim standing in the hallway wearing a gray sweat suit.
Betty smoothed down her hair. “What happened? What’s wrong with Jean? Are the girls all right?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m here to jog with you.”
“To jog with—” Betty shook her head and rested a palm against the wall to steady herself. “I thought I was supposed to think about it.”
“Sometimes thinking too much can be . . . come on, let’s just try this. Get changed. It’s dark outside. No one will see us. We can start slow.”
Insistence was etched into her brother-in-law’s face. She glanced back into her room, her eyes resting on her closet door. A couple of years ago, her old sweat suit from Amsterdam had been folded in the third drawer of her dresser. Every time she’d reached in to pull out a sweater, she would see the sweatshirt, and it would bring back a flood of memories. Sometimes she’d lift it out and burrow her face into it, seeking out the smell of sweat, a trace of her hard work, but only the scent of Ivory laundry flakes would waft over her. After the accident the sweatshirt had comforted her. It reminded her of all that she had accomplished and inspired her to work harder on her walking, but as the months went by, she wanted to see it less and less, so she had stuffed it into the back of her closet and tried not to think about it, telling herself it was lost.
But she knew exactly where it was.
She could put it on.
She could go outside with Jim.
She could see how it felt to run again.
With a sigh of surrender, she said, “Fine. Wait while I get changed.”
She closed the door but didn’t turn on the lights. Maybe if she dressed in the dark, she could pretend she was still sleeping and wouldn’t realize what she was doing, what she was risking. She opened the closet door and reached for the top shelf, her hand feeling its way along some wool sweaters until it reached a soft, thick cotton. She yanked it down, tugged off her nightgown, and pulled on underwear and the sweatshirt and pants before her mind could register too much and protest.
Betty glanced over her shoulder at her unmade bed. All she wanted to do was to climb back into it, face away from the door, and forget about all of this running nonsense. Instead she removed her old track shoes from inside the closet where they had been hidden in a shoebox. Don’t think, don’t think, she repeated to herself dully as she laced them on to her feet and lurched for the door.
Minutes later, she and Jim stepped onto the sidewalk.
He pointed to a streetlight in the distance. “We can walk this block to warm up, but then we’ll try a light jog on the next one. We can take it block by block and see how you feel.”
Betty murmured in agreement and they started moving, a slow walk at first. Each step ricocheted barbs of pain up and down her legs so she focused on the sensation of breathing.
In and out. In and out. One step. Another. How about one more?
When they reached the next block, Jim broke into a jog and turned to urge her along. “Come on, give it a try.”
She increased her pace to a slow jog. Pain flared in her hips, but by the end of the block it was more of a steady burn. Did that mean progress? Jim slowed to a walk, but momentum kept Betty jogging. If she stopped now, she wouldn’t start again. After several more blocks, her lungs and heart felt dangerously close to combusting, but she kept going. Jim led her on a twenty-minute loop around the neighborhood and soon they were back at the house.
Jim stopped jogging and picked up his foot behind him to stretch one of his quadriceps, but Betty simply stood, watching the vapor of her breath rise and spread into the air. A blush of morning light gave a faint glow to the yard. In between heaving breaths, she said, “It’s pretty at this hour.”
Jim stretched into a lunge.
Betty bit her lip. “Why are you out here with me?”
“I’m not getting any younger. I could stand to lose a few pounds,” he said, bending over to stretch his hamstrings, his gaze downward.
Betty considered this. Jim, tall and lean, had never been at risk for being overweight. Even his fingers stretching toward the flagstone walk were long and thin.