Watching Bunny peel an orange, one of the six he brought for her, Albie mentions, “It looks like your appetite’s come back.”
“No. It’s just that there’s nothing else to do here.” She breaks the orange apart and gives him one half. Nothing else to do, unless you count Activities, which Bunny doesn’t because a) still no dog, and b) although Bunny no longer actively thinks of herself as a writer, she cannot and will not accept the notion that Creative Writing is an Activity the way Decoupage is an Activity. Bunny writes as a way to kill time between meals. There is a lot of time between meals.
If they’d let her sleep all day, she probably wouldn’t be writing. If they’d let her sleep, that’s how she’d kill away the day. But they don’t let her sleep, and already, she has filled almost four legal pads with sentences and paragraphs.
“What else can I bring for you?” Albie asks. “More chocolate? Or some pears?”
His question prompts Bunny to remember. “A T-shirt with a picture of a cat on it,” she says. “Or a book about cats. Something to do with cats. And a card. With a cat on it. It’s Andrea’s birthday.”
“Andrea?” Albie asks. “Is she one of your friends here?”
Bunny squeezes the half of the orange still in her hand. The juice spurts. “I don’t have friends here,” she says. “I don’t have friends anywhere.”
Albie pries open her fingers to get the desiccated orange, which he sets on a napkin to take to the trash. Bunny wipes her hand on her paper pajama top. Albie takes his wife’s other hand, the one not sticky from the orange, and brings it to his lips. “You’re a good person, Bunny,” he says. “You really are.” And Bunny says, “Wrapping paper, too.”