Alice hasn’t said this many words in a row to her mother in a long time. She wonders if it’s the dark that is letting her talk like this. Or the fact that Angie has entered Alice’s world for a change.
“Can you smell that smell?”
Angie sniffs, skeptical and dubious that there could be something out here she would actually like to smell. Because while she may like big animals and barns and farmers and farmers’ wives, she does not, in any way, shape, or form, like dirt.
“Which smell?”
“All of them.”
“Honey, the garden isn’t really—”
“Ellie told me a new word today. Petrichor. The loamy smell that rises from the ground after rain. Isn’t it cool that there’s a word for that?”
“Ellie and her dictionary.”
“It’s there. Just like she said. It’s there.”
Water is now dripping from Angie’s neck down Angie’s back and she is wishing she could enter into the spirit of all of this with Alice a bit more fully, that she could just inhale petrichor like a really good sport, but just as fervently she is wishing she could get inside her nice, dry house.
“So . . . is that enough communing with nature for one night?”
Alice laughs.
“You go in. I’ll put the tools away.”
Angie picks up her umbrella and heads back to the house. She’s washing her hands at the kitchen sink and looks up to see that Alice is still in the garden, still kneeling in the dirt. The light from the lantern barely illuminates her. Angie turns out the kitchen light and returns to the window, thinking she might be able to see a little better. What is she waiting for? Her father’s voice? A miracle? Is she praying?
Angie realizes that she has no idea what Alice is thinking and she suddenly sees just how hard it is to know anyone, ever. But is there anything more difficult than trying to know your adolescent daughter? No one warned her that you can go from feeling like a really good mother to a really clueless and crappy mother the minute your daughter turns twelve. Or was it eleven?
Alice stands and stretches and picks up the lantern to walk the six rows, making sure everything is as it should be. Just the way her dad does it.
Alice is taller, Angie realizes, she suddenly looks more like Matt than ever; she has even started to move with Matt’s easy grace and confidence.
Angie watches her, sees her care and her competence and the threads that connect her to Matt. Each string stretched tight over each row, each careful furrow, each seed in the dark earth weaving a web of connection and memory.
Alice, satisfied, puts the hoe over one shoulder, picks up the stool and the lantern, and heads to the workshop.
Angie calls out the backdoor.
“I’m drawing you a hot bath.”
“Five minutes, Mom. I have to clean the tools.”
Just like Matt: meticulous with his tools. In the last thirty minutes Angie has suddenly found herself face-to-face with a whole slew of things Matt has taught Alice. Angie wonders what she has taught her daughter, and feels like that list is woefully short. In this moment she cannot think of one truly valuable thing to put on that list. How to do laundry? Fry an egg? Not in the same league.
How in the world is she going to fill in for Matt? Not that anyone could ever fill Matt’s shoes. But for Alice, for Alice . . . she gets a sudden and dizzying glimpse into the size of this loss. If Matt doesn’t come home . . . No, she can’t go there, she can’t think that. He will be found. He will return. She has to believe this. She has to.
Alice walks in the backdoor, soaking wet and muddy, her dark hair dripping down her back.
“C’mere.”
Alice visibly recoils.
“Mom, I’m a mess.”
“I don’t care.” And Angie opens her arms. She opens her arms to her daughter, hoping beyond hope that Alice won’t turn away.
There’s a long moment before Alice can bring herself to walk into them, and when she does she’s stiff and cold and uncertain. But for once, Angie is not worrying about getting wet or dirty or what she has to do next. For once, Angie just holds on and holds on, until she can feel Alice melt into her, until she can feel Alice’s head sink onto her shoulder, until she can feel Alice’s arms go around her.
“I’ve missed you,” she says into Alice’s damp hair.
May 4th
Four days later, when Sergeant Ames, accompanied by a second soldier, appears again at their front door there is no need for Angie or Alice or Ellie to say a word. They all know why he is here; they know what the letter he holds in his hand says. They stand in the open doorway and attempt to listen as Sergeant Ames does his duty and recites his script about a grateful nation.
“On behalf of the President and the Commandant of the Army, it is my unfortunate duty to inform you . . .”
It is a beautiful, balmy May day and the air is rich with new earth smells and fresh cut grass. They can hear the Peterson twins down the street as they shoot baskets in their driveway.
How many other screen doors open when Sergeant Ames drives up the street? How many of their neighbors are looking at his brown Ford sedan and knowing exactly what it means? The distant war suddenly brought close, suddenly right here in their driveway, right here on their front stoop, right here and right now on East Oak Street.
Sergeant Ames seems hesitant to leave. There are details: the return of the body, the return of Matt’s effects. These will be handled by the military. Sergeant Ames promises to come back in the morning to guide them through the process and the decisions.
They watch him drive away and then step back inside the house and close the door. They sit on the couch, Angie in the middle, Ellie and Alice on either side of her. Angie holds the letter with the official army seal in her hand. They are not screaming, they are not wailing; they are barely breathing. It is so quiet Alice can hear her dad’s watch ticking on her wrist.
The phone starts to ring.
“We need to call Gram,” Angie says. “And Uncle Eddie.”
The ringing phone is like a crying child; but Angie does not get up to answer it. Angie seems paralyzed.
“I’ll call them,” Alice says.
Angie can’t seem to focus.
“Mom . . . ?”
“Okay.”
Alice gets up and heads for the kitchen, the ringing phone getting louder and louder. She turns to look back at her mother. Ellie has climbed into Angie’s lap and Angie is rocking her back and forth. In between “I’ll call them,” and “Okay,” Alice has crossed an invisible line. She was expecting Angie to say, “No, no, that’s all right, honey; I’ll take care of it.” She was expecting Angie to hold on to her, to hold on to both of her girls. But here she is on the outside of the circle, steeling herself to break her grandmother’s heart. What is this longing to be touched and held and six years old again, to go backward in time, to be smaller than Ellie, to be the only one, to be held by her mother and her father?
She turns to look at her mother once more, thinking: Call me back. Call my name. Reach out to me.
But Angie is holding on to Ellie too tight, too tight. She is thinking that her heart is going to burst or stop beating. She wants to sink through the sofa and the floor and into the earth, to be with Matt, nowhere else, not to go on, not to put one foot in front of the other, not to be brave and true, but to let go, to surrender, to join him wherever he is.
The phone stops ringing. Alice picks up the receiver and punches in Gram’s number. She notices that her hand is shaking. She notices that the breakfast dishes are still in the sink. She notices that the linoleum floor could use a good scrubbing. There’s no answer at the apartment. She calls The Bird Sisters.
“Gram?”
“Alice? Are you all right?”
“It’s . . .”
And she can’t say “Dad,” she can’t say his name.
“I’ll be right there. And I’ll call Uncle Eddie. Is your mom there?”
“Yes.”
; “I’m on my way.”
Alice hangs up the phone and sits in a kitchen chair.
Henry shows up at the back door and lets himself in.
“I saw the car.”
She closes her eyes.
“Alice . . . ?”
She nods her head. He pulls a chair up and sits beside her.
“Did you call your Gram?”
She nods.
“And your Uncle Eddie?”
Another nod. That’s all she can manage.
“Okay, then.”
He takes her hand.
“We’ll just wait.”
They wait. Wait for the news to sink in, for the tears to begin, for a telegram telling them it was all a mistake. That night Alice waits and waits for sleep to come. She finally gives up and goes downstairs. She finds the photograph album she is looking for and quietly steps outside the back door and crosses the grass to the workshop.
She climbs into her sleeping bag, turns on her flashlight, and opens the cover of the photograph album. It is the summer of 1997; she’s six years old. This is the summer she finally learns to swim on top of the water, like the big kids do. There are dozens of photos of their week’s vacation camping at Small Point. Ellie hasn’t even been born yet. Angie and Matt look so young. There are photos of a dinner—was it a birthday? An anniversary? There’s a bottle of wine and a jar full of wildflowers on their picnic table. There’s a photo of Matt, grinning at Angie as he holds two live and kicking lobsters over the pot boiling on their propane stove. In the next photo Angie has her hair up and a skirt on and Alice can see in the photo how pretty Angie is as she turns to smile at Matt taking the picture; and she can see how her father is looking at Angie and loving her; she can see right there, in this photograph, right there in that moment, that they are in love.
She turns another page and there she is, in her red and white gingham checked bathing suit. That was her favorite bathing suit of all time. She never wanted to outgrow that suit. She wonders what happened to it, if it is still in her bottom drawer. She doesn’t remember Ellie ever wearing it. She can’t imagine she would ever, ever let her mother give it away.
It’s a long walk for a six-year-old, all the way across the island. Mom is back at the campsite reading her book while Alice hikes with her dad. At first she was dawdling because she was distracted by the trees and the ferns and the sounds of animals in the woods. She has been practicing walking like an Indian, so she doesn’t disturb anything: not a pine needle, not the carpet of leaves and hidden stones. It’s really hard! And really slow. It is driving Dad nuts. He keeps turning around to find that she is not, in fact, behind him because she has stopped to investigate some new discovery.
“Alice, get a move on!”
“Alice, look up!”
“Alice! You’re missing everything while you worry about your feet!”
How did the Indians do this, she wants to know as she trots to catch up with her father.
They’re out of the woods now and climbing over a rise along a ridge of granite and moss. At the top of the ridge they can see the other side of the island and their destination: Sand Dollar Beach.
“Race you!” Dad calls out as he takes off down the trail. Of course he lets Alice catch up with him and pass him and then fakes running out of breath and falling behind. When she starts to slow down he runs circles around her.
“Come on, come on, come on! We’re almost there.”
And then there it is: a perfect crescent of a beach tucked away between the rocks and the trees. Deserted.
“Last one in is a rotten egg!”
He drops their backpack to the sand and pulls off his T-shirt and his hiking boots and pants and sprints into the water, jumping over the waves and then diving headfirst into a big breaker. He surfaces and swims hard for a few minutes before turning back to check on Alice. Who is stuck on the beach, one boot on, one boot off, trying to get a knot out of the lace of her left boot.
“I beat you!” Dad crows.
“There’s a knot!” she tosses back. “No fair!”
“Slowpoke!”
He flips over on his back and spouts water like a whale.
She tries wriggling the knot back and forth to loosen it up and finally gets it undone. She kicks her boot off, pulls off her T-shirt and her shorts, and heads down to the water.
She’s wearing her new red and white checked bathing suit and wondering if Dad will like it, when she steps into the water. How can it be so cold? Dad is out there lolling around like it’s a bathtub and the water is so cold it makes her teeth hurt.
“It’s cold!”
“Run. Don’t walk. Just go.”
She hesitates.
“Alice! Just go!”
She runs through the little waves and dives into the first big wave and swims underwater to her dad. She has her eyes open even though the salt stings, and she’s kicking as hard as she can and pulling with her arms with all her might. He picks her up and throws her into the water, over and over. With variations. Backward. Sideways. She stands on his legs and pushes off as he throws her. She stands on his shoulders and jumps in. She’s laughing and swallowing water and coughing and sometimes choking but always coming back for more.
That’s my girl, Matt thinks. Not afraid, not cold, not complaining, not hesitating. Jumping in.
They leave the water and lie down in the sand. They forgot towels. Mom would not have forgotten towels. But it doesn’t matter. They lie down in the sand side by side. Alice looks at the sun through her lashes and half-closed eyes, even though she’s not supposed to. It’s directly above them in a deep blue sky. She can hear the waves and the fir trees that line the shore moving in the wind. She can see the sun glinting, she can even see the sun when she closes her eyes. How can that be? She can hear her dad’s breathing change as he drops into sleep. And as her skin dries she feels it contract with the sun and the salt. She thinks she’s gonna get a burn. They forgot sunscreen. Mom would have remembered sunscreen, too. Alice thinks it’s nice to forget things sometimes. To lie in the sand with nothing but her dad and the sun and the water and the trees.
There’s a knock at the door, which startles her.
“Alice . . . ? It’s me. Henry.”
“It’s open,” she calls out to him.
Henry steps inside the workshop.
“I saw your light. You okay?”
It’s two o’clock in the morning and it turns out that Henry has been sitting up with her. She puts the flashlight on the floor; its beam casts a light across the workshop.
“Pull up a chair.”
Henry grabs the lawn chair, brings it near Alice, sits. He’s wearing old gray sweatpants that are too short, and an ancient sweatshirt that must have belonged to his brother. His hair is even more shaggy and rumpled than usual.
“I can’t sleep.”
“I figured.”
“I’ve been looking at pictures.”
She hands him the photo album.
“From when I was six.”
He opens it.
“That was my favorite bathing suit,” she says.
“I remember it.”
“You do?”
“You wore that in the sprinkler and when we went to the high school pool for our swim lessons.”
“I can’t believe you remember that.”
Henry wants to tell her that he remembers everything, but when he tries out the phrase inside his head he sounds like an idiot.
“Alice—”
“Henry,” she interrupts.
“What?”
“Would you—?”
“—What?”
“I don’t know how to say this—”
“That’s okay.”
“I think if you could . . . maybe . . . I don’t know . . . hold me . . .”
She hesitates.
“I might be able to fall asleep.”
Henry has no objection to this idea, and he would like to play it cool, like, oh sure, what the heck, I get
this request all the time. Hold you? All casual like. You bet. No problem. But really he is pumped full of the jitters, which is making it especially difficult not to let his hands and his feet sort of do their own nervous dance, and right away he is thinking logistics, like how is this going to work on that skinny little air mattress with a sleeping bag. But Alice has already figured it out. She unzips the sleeping bag so that it can go over them like a quilt.
“I think if we lie on our sides we can both fit.”
So Henry finds himself taking off his shoes and his sweatshirt and lying down next to Alice. She lies with her back to his chest. There’s a momentary question about what to do with their arms, but they figure it out.
“I’m gonna leave the light on, if that’s okay with you.”
“Sure.”
Her head is tucked beneath his chin, her body curves into him, his arms are around her. He inhales the heady perfume of her hair, mixed with the workshop smells of woodsmoke and linseed oil. He listens to her breathing. He can feel her breathing.
“Henry . . . ?”
“Shhhh . . .”
“Don’t let go.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
They are quiet for a while.
“Henry . . . ?”
“Go to sleep, Alice.”
“I wish . . .”
“What?”
“I wish we could stay like this forever and ever and tomorrow would never come.”
He begins to sing to her, very softly, almost not singing at all, just a whisper of a tune. He spins out the tune like it is a tale he is telling her, until he feels her body relax, until he feels her falling into sleep. He sings to let her know he’s there, to stay anchored to the earth, to keep from laughing or crying in amazement that he is lying with Alice in his arms, he sings as if music could keep her alive, as if music could feed her soul, as if music could weave a protective spell around her to survive these days and these weeks and these months and these years, he sings as if he could give her a piece of himself, which will ring inside of her like a bell, like a promise, like hope whenever she needs him; and in his singing, he promises her every single thing he can think of, and more.
Alice Bliss Page 21