“Is it winter where Daddy is going?”
“Yeah.”
“Winter like this?”
“I don’t know. I think so.”
“Snow and everything?”
“I’ll find out.”
“I’m cold.”
As they turn toward home, Ellie trips and falls on the ice, hard. Alice picks her up before she can even start crying and feels something warm and wet on her neck.
“Is your nose bleeding?”
Ellie puts one pink mitten up to her nose, it comes away red, and she starts to wail.
“It’s okay, Ellie. We’ll get you fixed up at home.”
“My mittens!”
“They’ll be okay.”
“No they won’t!”
“I’ll wash them.”
“They’re my favorite ones.”
“I know.”
“Can’t you go any faster? Daddy can carry me faster.”
“He’s bigger than me.”
“And stronger. And nicer.”
“I’m being pretty nice right now.”
“Can I have ice cream for dinner?”
“Not that nice.”
Ellie gets heavier and heavier with every step. When Alice finally turns into their yard, she’s sweating and breathing hard. They get through the front door and head straight into the kitchen. Mom is long gone. No dinner preparations in sight. Alice sits Ellie right on the sink and starts to assess the damage.
“I think you’re gonna live.”
“Is it broken?”
“Not a chance.”
“You sure?”
“Split your lip, though.”
“Really?”
“And you’ve got a little gash on your chin.”
Alice slips off Ellie’s jacket and turns it inside out so she can’t see the blood. She grabs a paper towel and wipes Ellie’s blood from her cheek and chin.
“You’re a mess, Alice.”
“Thanks a lot.”
She tosses her own jacket on top of Ellie’s.
“Give me your mittens, too. I’ll get them soaking downstairs.”
“Will you make dinner?”
“As soon as I put our jackets in the wash. I’m gonna give you some ice for your lip, okay?”
She hands Ellie an ice cube wrapped in a dishcloth.
“Hold that right on your lip. Don’t press. I’ll be right back.”
Alice runs down the basement stairs, turns on the washer, and fills up the sink to soak Ellie’s mittens. She’s secretly glad to have stuff to do. She charges back up the stairs and checks out the fridge.
“You good with grilled cheese and tomato soup?”
“Again?”
Alice gives her a look.
“Get your book and read in here to keep me company, okay?”
“Should I call Mom?”
“No, let’s surprise her.”
“I could make her a tray.”
“Good idea.”
While Alice makes grilled cheese sandwiches, the slow, slow, slow way her dad makes them, Ellie gets the tray off the hall table. She finds a cloth napkin to make a little placemat, then sets the tray with the nice china from the china cabinet.
“I need a flower and a vase.”
“You could draw one.”
“And then can I stir the soup?”
“Yup.”
“And pour the milk?”
“It’s really heavy, Ellie.”
“I can do it.”
Alice pulls the stool over so Ellie can stir the soup. She sets the table for the two of them.
“The tray looks nice.”
“You think Mom will like it?” Ellie asks.
“Yup.”
“I want ice cream for dessert.”
“Okay.”
“Neapolitan.”
“We’ll see what we’ve got.”
Alice pours soup into bowls and cuts the sandwiches in triangles the way Ellie likes them, while Ellie pours the milk.
“I want to carry the tray.”
“How about if you carry the plate and I’ll carry the tray with the soup.”
“I won’t spill.”
“It’s even hard for me not to spill.”
“Okay.”
Upstairs, neither one of them has a hand free to knock on the door to the bedroom. Ellie gives three little kicks with her foot.
“Mom?”
The room is dark. Angie has kicked off her heels and is lying on top of the bed with a cold cloth over her eyes.
“Mom?”
“Not now.”
“We brought you some dinner.”
“I’m really not hungry.”
“On a tray.”
Angie opens her eyes and sits up in bed. She reaches over and turns on the bedside lamp. Alice sets the tray on her lap. Ellie sets the pink scallop-edged plate with the grilled cheese sandwich in the exact center of the tray.
“I split my lip on the ice,” Ellie says.
“We just went for a little walk.”
“My nose was bleeding, too. I bled all over Alice.”
“It’s okay. I’ve got our jackets in the wash already.”
“Alice carried me all the way home and fixed me up and made dinner. I helped. I drew you a flower because we didn’t have one to put on your tray.”
Angie reaches out to touch Ellie’s lip. She wants to say thank you but she’s not sure she can trust herself to say anything at all.
After dinner, after washing the dishes and locking up the house, Alice climbs upstairs to find that Ellie has fallen asleep with her clothes on right on top of the covers. Ellie should have had a bath, Alice realizes, but it’s too late now. She pulls off Ellie’s shoes and socks and sweater and manages to slide her under the covers. How can she sleep through all that? Her lip is swelling and her chin has a dark bruise.
Alice sits down at her desk by the window and realizes that none of her homework is done and she is too tired to read about the Revolutionary War now. She looks across the backyard to her dad’s workshop sitting squat and dark in the moonlight. That is absolutely too sad to dwell on, so she opens the window and sticks her head out, craning her neck to see Henry’s house down the block, but his window is dark, too. She looks at her dad’s watch and rights it on her wrist so she can read the dial: ten o’clock.
She listens to Ellie snoring and thinks of hearing her dad’s voice coming through the phone, saying: “Angie . . . ?” Did they say good-bye? Did they ever actually say good-bye? She thinks of her mom’s untouched tray, Ellie’s bloody mittens, she hopes their jackets will be dry in the morning, and somewhere in there—after she gets up and gets her old stuffed bear off the shelf, which feels silly and childish but right now she doesn’t care—somewhere in there, she falls asleep.
March 23rd
Alice and Henry walk Ellie to school every morning, and then instead of climbing the hill and crossing the middle school playing fields to get to the high school, they go the long way around, down Belknap Road and past the Four Corners. Alice and Henry could take the bus but they both hate the bus. Nothing good ever happens on that bus. They walk no matter what the weather so they can just be for twenty minutes before school. They don’t talk much; some days they don’t talk at all.
Henry and Alice have known each other, as their parents like to say, since they were in utero. This phraseology has become less and less charming the older they get. They’ve also been stuck having play dates since they were born because their families are neighbors. This was not such a big deal in grade school. Fifth grade got a little uncomfortable. If they could have gone to different middle and high schools it might’ve been better. But it is what it is.
The facts include things like Henry coming home from school in second grade and telling his mom, “I’m going to marry Alice. William wants to marry her, too, but he can’t.” Their mothers repeat this stuff. Still! They also got caught—of course—stealing candy from Mr. Ricci’s corner store and
playing doctor and locking Ellie in a closet—she had a flashlight!—and whatever else little kids get up to. And just when Alice thinks she can’t stand one more day of enforced friendship with Henry, he will do something so amazing that she thinks he’s a saint or something.
Henry was always small for his age. So small that his parents worried and his doctors worried and Henry had to go through all these tests and things. But in the last six months, he has grown six inches. Henry is not the same boy. At all.
Sometimes Alice looks into his face and sees that his eyes are grayer and he has these cheekbones that look about as sharp as his ankles and wrists. Everything about Henry is a little angular and over defined, like all that fast growing hasn’t given his skin a chance to catch up yet. It’s like he’s still two people: little kid Henry and growing up Henry, and Alice is watching those two people switch places right in front of her eyes.
Henry’s brother, Rob, is a lot older. He’s already graduated from college in Boston and is working for a relief organization in Haiti. So his parents are older, too, and Alice’s mom is always saying that Henry’s the kind of kid who needs to come from a big family. He needs the noise and the friction and the company. Not that the Blisses actually qualify as a big family, but if you add Henry, their numbers start to look a little more substantial.
Today Henry is worried about baseball tryouts. He loves to play baseball, but he pretty much sucks in every position. And Alice, who goes to most of Henry’s games, has seen him play just about every position. Coaches move Henry around the field, thinking if they could just harness all that enthusiasm, some talent might emerge.
Alice has spent long spring and summer evenings playing catch with Henry, trying to pitch for Henry, and trying to field for Henry. Occasionally her dad would join them and they’d toss the ball around in the spring twilight, the streetlights coming on one by one, crickets whirring, that damp, green spring smell redolent in the air around them. Something else was in the air as well; something about promise and possibility and another beginning, another summer just around the corner.
But with her dad gone, they have not been tossing the ball around much. In fact, Alice doesn’t even know where her mitt is.
The whole tryout thing is one horrible round of humiliation after another for Henry. Alice is about to offer to come with him when Henry says he might not try out for baseball this year after all.
Alice is shocked at this news and possibly also a little bit glad for Henry that he can stop feeling so bad trying to do something he loves so much. But then there’s this other reaction, like why the hell does everything have to change all the time?
She doesn’t say any of this, of course, because what could she say? I’m shocked-sad-mad-disgusted-furious, I want to scream at you, I want to celebrate. She sounds schizophrenic, even inside her own head.
She just keeps walking, keeps her head down. She’s chewing her lip and tastes blood—damn! Now that’s gonna bug her all day. And then they’re passing Mrs. Minty’s house.
Mrs. Minty lives alone, and Mrs. Minty always comes out on her porch and waves to Henry and Alice. Mrs. Minty is old. Really old, like from another century. But that doesn’t stop her from tutoring at the library, where she runs the literacy program. Teaching adults to read and write two afternoons and two evenings a week.
There she is in her tweed skirt and cardigan sweater and those dark brown tie shoes with a little heel. Her hair is in a bun. Her dad used to say, “Mrs. Minty looks like she just stepped out of a bandbox.” Whatever that is.
“Good morning, Alice! Good morning, Henry!”
“Good morning, Mrs. Minty!”
Henry gives her a little wave. Henry always gives her a little wave.
“Henry, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind stopping by after school. I need some help moving a few boxes.”
“Sure thing, Mrs. Minty.”
“Alice, you come, too. I’m baking cookies this afternoon.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mrs. Minty is smiling at her, not some sappy, oh you poor thing smile, but just a regular spring morning smile. Alice stops. Henry is shuffling his feet and giving her all the nonverbal let’s go signals he can think of. But Alice ignores him. She stands still right there on the sidewalk and takes a good long look.
The apple tree in Mrs. Minty’s front yard is full of fat buds getting ready to bloom. And it’s full of birds, too, and they’re all singing. Alice didn’t notice the birds before, but now she does. They’re making a racket. How could she not notice this? And then she looks down into the green, green grass and Mrs. Minty’s whole yard is filled with tiny white and blue flowers.
“Those are pretty flowers, Mrs. Minty.”
“Snowbells and scilla. Some of the first to bloom each spring. They’ll even bloom in the snow. My husband and I planted a hundred bulbs thirty years ago. Now there are thousands.”
Henry actually takes Alice by the arm and pulls her away, giving Mrs. Minty a last wave.
Alice is thinking she’d like to just lie down in Mrs. Minty’s front yard and skip school altogether, but Henry has this death grip on her elbow and before she knows it, he is propelling her up the drive to school.
They’re early—as usual—so they head to the auditorium, which has the only decent piano in the school. The janitor has given Henry the key so Henry can come in and play whenever he wants. This is strictly against the rules. The janitor, Mr. Herlihy, and Henry have decided, after much wrangling and discussion back and forth, that they don’t care about that stupid rule.
Mr. Herlihy, it turns out, loves music. He has a huge collection of old jazz records. LPs he calls them. And whenever he can, he slips inside the auditorium and sits in the last row to listen to that kid Henry Grover playing in the dark.
Henry rigs up his book lamp so it creates a little puddle of light, and Alice climbs up onto the lip of the stage, and angles her book into the one spot where there’s almost enough light to read by. Henry plays while Alice finishes her English homework.
Henry likes this arrangement. He gets to improvise and no one makes comments. Alice never tells him to shut up or play something different. Alice lies on the stage and reads, and sometimes she puts her book down and just listens to him. Every once in a while she’ll tell him she likes what he’s playing, or she’ll make him stop and listen while she tells him he’s gonna be a great musician one day. Every once in a while he can see the music take her someplace else and he can see the old Alice, the six-year-old or the ten-year-old or even the twelveyear-old Alice.
Alice abandons The Catcher in the Rye and looks up into the darkness. The velvet curtain smells old and musty, and everything around them is shrouded in shadow. She’s trying not to think about her father, about waiting and waiting for the letters that are taking forever to get to them, about the too quick, too hurried call when he first arrived, with every other word breaking up on them, none of them certain that anything they were saying was actually getting through.
She scoots over until she’s lying underneath the piano. Here she can feel the sound reverberating in the floor below her and in the piano above her. She closes her eyes and breathes with Henry’s playing, until the notes are inside her heartbeat and the notes are in her breathing and the notes are flowing through her veins.
March 24th
After her last class the following day, American history, Mr. Herman hands Alice a blank piece of paper with her name at the top of it, and wants an explanation as to why Alice didn’t even bother to try answering one single question on yesterday’s pop quiz. She looks out the window, looking for an answer maybe, and sees the track team lope out onto the track.
“Do I need to call your parents?”
She drags her attention back to Mr. Herman and the blank piece of paper in her hand.
“What?”
“Your parents. Do we need to get them involved?”
“No. No. Definitely not. You don’t need to call them. I wasn’t feeling well.”
“You should have told me.”
“I didn’t really realize until it was too late.”
“You should have come to me after class, then.”
“Can I make up the test?”
“I’m afraid not.”
She steals a quick look at him. He’s being a hard-ass because he thinks she’s a good student and maybe he can shock her back into line. She thinks, I used to care about this; I used to be able to care about this, when her attention is drawn back to the runners outside on the track.
“I’m gonna miss my bus, Mr. Herman.”
“Don’t let this happen again, Alice.”
“I won’t.”
She is released; she is walking out the door, running down the hall, and slamming through the back doors that lead out to the playing fields and the track. Dumping her backpack and jacket on the ground, she jogs over to the coach.
“Can I run?” She asks.
“Can you?”
“I don’t know. I want to run.”
“What’s your name?”
“Alice Bliss.”
He makes a note on his clipboard.
“Grade?”
“Tenth.”
“You have any shorts? Sneaks?”
“I’ve got these,” indicating her battered Chucks.
“Take it easy, okay? We’re just warming up. It’s our first day outdoors.”
“Okay, okay, but I can run?”
“We’ll see about that.”
Alice sprints to catch up with the runners who are doing laps and falls in beside a tall redheaded girl who looks like she knows what she’s doing. The girl turns her head and gives Alice a half smile. Alice in her jeans feels like a mule next to this gazelle, but it’s fun to try to match her stride, to lift her head, the way this girl does, to begin to sweat. She’s feeling the cool early-spring air and the clouds crossing the sun, and her body, she’s feeling her body, and her legs are starting to ache and feel heavy, but it doesn’t matter; she’s running, she’s breathing, and for a second, for a tantalizing series of seconds, she’s feeling free.
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