For her it was not an unusual thought, and neither was the anger that followed. ‘Okay, babe,’ Tommy said. ‘It’s okay.’ And she groaned some more because it never was. Dawn made the Knoxville skyline beautiful. Their second-floor apartment looked out over Fort Dickerson Park, and the Appalachian Mountains were silhouetted against the sky by the new day emerging from beyond. Such beauty sometimes held Jayne entranced and gave her every reason to live, but some mornings – like this one – it passed her by. The first pains of the day forbade beauty, and today the agony seemed worse than usual. Tommy knelt beside her on the bed. He’d thrown back the covers even as she stirred, and now he was slowly massaging her feet and lower legs, working the feeling back in, pressing away the nightly muscle paralysis that her condition brought on. A year ago they’d seen a consultant in Cleveland who’d told her to wake every hour and exercise for five minutes. That had reduced the pain by maybe a fifth, but she spent her life exhausted, and the tiredness brought on a more fiery discomfort later in the day.
