Emancipating Alice

by Ada Winder

  Alice’s mind blanked out for a moment. She blinked.

  “What do you mean ‘son’?”

  She couldn’t comprehend it; he couldn’t have possibly meant biologically.

  “His name’s Frederick—although he likes to be called Rick—and well, he should be about thirty-one now.”

  Alice tried to jump-start her brain to do the math. Then she realized that Drew was the same age.

  “George, are you trying to tell me...” she began as soon as her voice returned, “that you...”

  “I’m sorry, Alice.” He tightened his grip on her hand. “It was a long time ago. I promise you, I did not know about him the entire time…”

  Alice pulled her hand away.

  “But you knew about me the whole time didn’t you? We were married you son-of-a-bitch!” She felt her chest heaving. “When did this happen? How?”

  George looked away and appeared to be occupied by intense thoughts. He seemed to be filtering information, as if trying to decide how much to say. She shoved his shoulder to bring his attention back to her and resisted shoving it again.

  “You tell me, George, tell me why you cheated on me! Wasn’t I everything for you, everything you wanted? Why did you do it? I gave up everything for you!”

  George inhaled deeply.

  His eyes looked so tortured that in any other circumstance Alice would have wanted to rest his head on her shoulder and comfort him; her heart would have bled for him. But right now, she wanted to make him bleed.

  “Alice, I’m sorry—I can’t tell you the whole story...”

  Alice almost choked on a laugh.

  “Are you serious? You really don’t think you owe me the whole story? You better cough it up right now you asshole—you tell me what the hell happened.”

  George seemed surprised at her and Alice wondered at his surprise. How could he possibly be shocked at anything she said or did at that moment? He had just sprung an illicit affair on her, topped off by a bastard child from the trysts—irrefutable proof of his infidelity. She felt mortified, betrayed, disgusted, angry. Chagrined.

  “Alice...” He still appeared to be fighting with himself. “Alice, it just happened.”

  “Oh, it just happened? You two tripped onto each other, naked, and got stuck?”

  “Alice, we weren’t having an affair. It was one time, and it wasn’t planned—I...I had feelings for her; she was a friend.”

  Alice slapped him hard then, the force of it taking his face in the opposite direction of hers briefly, and she had to do everything in her power to stop herself from slapping his face to the other side, back and forth, over and over. She had to restrain herself from picking up the nearest object and hitting him with it. Had there been a deadly weapon around, she had no doubt she would have used it.

  She could see the blur of her own eyelashes as her eyes narrowed. “Now why the hell am I not surprised?”

  Alice knew she had two options then: to give in to the emotions that would lead her to act like a crazed animal, or to stay as calm as possible, keep her hands and feet to herself, and figure out how to deal with this later.

  She breathed deep then started pacing, no longer looking at him.

  “Who is she, George?” she asked in a voice that sounded surprisingly soft to her own ears.

  He shook his head.

  “You don’t know her.”

  “Did you work with her? Go to school with her? Please don’t tell me she was someone I met.”

  “Alice, you’ve never seen her. I met her by chance.”

  “Where?”

  “In the city—in Chicago.”

  Alice stopped pacing. And then it hit her like an anvil. Her mouth dropped.

  “All those times you were working over the weekend...”

  George seemed to sink into himself.

  “Yes, sometimes I was visiting her,” he said quietly.

  “So then what the hell is this bullshit about it just happening? About it not being an affair? You knew exactly what you were doing! Don’t you dare insult my intelligence you fucking jackass!”

  George’s eyes rounded, no doubt once again surprised by her language.

  “Alice, it was all in friendship—I didn’t realize my feelings for her had moved to the next level until it was too late!”

  “Oh, you expect me to believe anything that comes out of your lying mouth now don’t you? I can’t believe you did this to me. You don’t know what I gave up! My whole life…just you…just you…”

  She was assaulted by the loneliness and pain of her past, the entrapment and suffocation she’d felt. She thought of the others she’d wanted but denied herself in order to settle for George. The dreams she’d thrown away, despair and worthlessness her constant companions. The desecration of her spirit.

  She died so that he could have life, and now, he left her no choice.

  That night, as she lay in bed while George was on the couch in the family room it returned—the dream where she was running through a forest with someone on her tail. She could hear the shadowed entity breathing hard behind her as she ran, but for the first time, she rounded a tree and turned to face her pursuer. She realized she had an axe in her hand. But instead of attacking her pursuer, she turned away and started to cut down the trees. She chopped and chopped until trees were felled all over the forest, until the forest was no longer a forest but a field of felled trees. With each fallen tree the shadow-pursuer got lighter and lighter, but not to the point where she could make out who it was—it got to the point where the figure was so light and cloudy, it was hardly a human figure anymore. Lighter and cloudier it got until at last it disappeared. There were no vines this time, and even the felled trees disappeared until she was alone in the clearing with the axe.

  ***

  Sometime in college, George had said to her: “If you ever leave me, I’d have to kill you.” He’d said it with a smile, as if he were joking, laughing at his own exaggeration of feeling and the extremity of decided action as a result of it, but it didn’t strike her as a joke at all. He might as well have added: if I can’t have you nobody will. That’s how the usual obsessive psychos felt wasn’t it? She was his property, free to do with or dispose of as he pleased.

  Now, she was fifty six—and what did she have to show for it? Two kids with families of their own, no longer dependent on her. A beautiful garden full of home-grown flowers, vegetables, and spices—but of what worth was it really? Sure, folks appreciated the flowers, asked for a tomato or some basil every now and then but it wasn’t like she was selling it on a large or even a small scale. Sure it brought her joy to nurture…and perhaps that was enough—for that particular hobby at least. But whose point in life was to grow and personally enjoy a garden? Who would even remember her besides her immediate family? Who would have nice things to say about her after she was gone besides the husband who had feasted on her and the son she had pampered out of guilt?

  She thought about what a most fitting epitaph for her would be: “Wife and mother (barely).”

  Her story was unremarkable, her roles taken reluctantly, her happiness nonexistent. What was the point of it all?

  As far as she saw it, the reason for all of her troubles was sitting quite happily in the living room, reading a newspaper. Of course he was happy. He had lived all of his dreams and then some. He had two family units—a legal one and an illegitimate one. He had a child with the woman he clearly had always loved. He had gone to see his mistress’s mother in the hospital and probably had a quickie with the mistress somewhere along the way. The four of them had probably taken family photos together, laughed at her together.

  George had made the most of his own life and hers; she had given him everything. But now it was time to switch roles. She needed her life back, even if it meant taking his.

  She had thought about killing him several times throughout their marriage—but for different reasons. Suspicion, however, would undoubtedly fall on her; she had opened up her mouth one to
o many times and made her discontent known. And she knew for a fact no one would try to cover for her; no one would give her the benefit of the doubt.

  She couldn’t do it, couldn’t take the risk. If she was found out, he would have won in a way she could never forgive herself for: he would have made her imprisonment literal. That’s if she was lucky and didn’t get the death penalty. In any case, she would be put behind tangible bars. But even then she wondered if that would be preferable; she would at least be released from his presence.

  If it wasn’t for Elaine and Drew, she might have carried out her desire but she didn’t want to crush her children—they were both so attached to him. Every time she thought seriously about it—saw herself with a pillow raised over his head in her mind’s eye, or slipping something into a drink, she found herself thinking about those bars, her children. The consequences. She had always been afraid of consequences.

  The consequences no longer mattered. She had waited it out long enough, and now all she could think about was eliminating him from her life, the weed that had overrun her garden, killed all the plants that could have benefited her. George was a parasite she was tired of harboring.

  She remembered what she had learned about sea slugs and how they defended themselves: some sea slugs used camouflage, blending into the background for defense, while others used aposematism, announcing their danger—their poisonous nature or bad taste—through vibrant colors. But the ones she found fascinating were the ones that used the defenses of others, usually animals they preyed on. Like the stinging cells of sea anemones and hydroids—the sea slug would store them in their own bodies and use them as if they were their own, like they’d been born with them.

  Alice planned to use the defenses of another living organism as her own. Sure, she had many other options but it seemed most natural to utilize what was at her fingertips every day, being pruned, loved, admired. Her green thumb decided for her.

  ***

  Tuesday, June 27th 2006

  In honor of trying to get past his indiscretion and as a symbol of her promise to keep aloft their years and life together, Alice made George a special lunch; a meal more adventurous than usual, inspired by South Asia. One with lots of flavor and spice.

  When Alice briefly excused herself to go upstairs, she knocked their room telephone off of its hook and moved it from its usual place so that if George were to try to make a call from downstairs, he would not be able to dial out.

  Should he manage to make it upstairs, he would spend precious moments looking for it.

  After the meal, she cleared off the dishes.

  She was satisfied that George had eaten most of what she’d laid down in front of him—enough for her purposes anyway.

  As she poured him another glass of water, he asked her to bring the latest newspaper to him—he liked reading at the table in the dining room.

  She brought him the newspaper, and for good measure, the most recent political book he’d been reading; he would probably sit in that spot for a long time.

  She placed the glass of water near him, then told him her plans—she just needed to make a quick stop at the market to pick up groceries for the evening and the next day. And she might stop to talk to Emily from her photography class, and who knew how long that would take.

  “Don’t forget to bring my ice cream,” he had said. “The butterscotch one. Or the one with the hazelnut.”

  She nodded.

  “Is there anything else you can think of that we need?”

  “Maybe some laundry detergent,” he said, but she knew he was wrong. They were well-stocked.

  “Okay, dear,” she said.

  She looked at him again, differently, when she saw him smiling at her warmly, seeing their past, her future. She saw him as he was back in the days when she thought he loved her, when she was convinced—and still was—that he did. She remembered the jealous looks, the possessive embraces, the loving eyes.

  She remembered him as he was with Elaine, with Drew; a wonderful father. The best father she could have found.

  Looking at him, she saw the eyes of her daughter, the face of her son.

  She also saw the face of his other son. She saw the lies etched in his wrinkles, the deception in his pupils. She saw the weed that had been choking her gardens, killing her fruits and flowers, ineradicable until now.

  He was like the dandelion that did not know it was a weed, and was even admired for its flowers.

  Her eyes refocused when she realized he was looking at her intently, no doubt having noticed her stare.

  “What is it, Alice?”

  She blinked.

  “Oh! I was just running over the list in my mind. I think I might need to add herbicide to it.”

  Alice marveled at how quickly she had crossed over from love to hate, even though she’d heard the adage about the thin line between them her whole life. She marveled at the speed, but she wasn’t surprised she’d crossed over at all; she knew it was a balancing act all along: standing on that thin high wire line, it was easy to tilt one way or another.

  Alice wondered at other people’s amazement when they heard stories involving love going sour, even murderous. How astonished they were when jealous husbands killed wives. How perplexed when someone committed an act that reeked of hate against a loved one. She was never surprised by any of it; as far as she was concerned, love and hate were siblings—they had the same mother.

  She also marveled at how easy it was to finally eradicate the root of all her discontent—she had the tools all along.

  As far as she was concerned, he had brought this on himself.

  She could have just walked away but he entrapped her until she could do nothing but bite through the ropes, chop the octopus-like arms away.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said, having completed her list. He nodded at her, finishing a sip of water.

  When she looked in his eyes for the final time, she felt a trace of regret. His eyes were glistening—or at least seemed to be—wide and open, looking at her as if he wanted to drink her up. He looked grateful, happy, no doubt because she had seemed to forgive him of his latest and greatest transgression. His eyes, after all these years, were still full of love.

  Tears started to fill her own so she gave him a quick smile then turned away, shutting the door behind her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Edward wouldn’t have done this to her; she knew it. He wouldn’t have turned her into this type of woman. Eddie had lived a lot of his early life hopelessly devoted to her and if she’d given him a chance, he probably would have lived the rest of his life in the same manner.

  Eddie had been utterly in love with her for as long as she could remember. As far as she could tell, he had loved her since they were seven when his family moved into her neighborhood. Perhaps he had loved her since the very first time he saw her outside on the grass, reading Dr. Seuss. He certainly loved her once they became friends and started playing outside together— hide-and-seek, stick-ball, marbles.

  Perhaps she was wrong and he actually started loving her later, when they started playing inside her house together, when she started reading her favorite stories to him. But she was certain he loved her by the time they started making up stories together, when they sat watching Dragnet, The Lone Ranger and reruns of Sky King. She had no doubt he still loved her in later years as they flipped through the latest issues of The Shadow and Batman. And she was sure he didn’t stop loving her when they ended up going to the same high school and she started helping him out with his studies.

  Eddie pined away for her through puppy love, the love grown from friendship, and a romantic love that never got a chance to bloom because after over ten years of living near to each other, Eddie and Alice were separated by college.

  Alice had figured out how Eddie felt about her over the years by the time they were in their late teens but she never acknowledged it, waiting for Eddie to be the one to do so. But Eddie never made a move on her. Even when he i
nvited her out to eat or go to the movies, Alice treated it as she always had—they were out together as friends—and he let her. Alice kept waiting for the day Eddie would put his foot down and make it clear that what they were on was a real date, that he wanted her to be his girl, but that day never came; after all, Eddie was no George.

  Eddie was quiet, a little shy. Tentative in his dealings with Alice whereas George was outgoing, aggressive—had no problem leading the way. And while Eddie was always a good friend to her, always ready with a willing ear and to show he cared, making it clear he would forever be there for her as a friend, George made it clear he never meant to be her friend—he meant to be her man.

  Looking back on it all, Alice knew who she should have ended up with—Eddie would have been the closest thing to the perfect husband for her but passivity ruined their potential; she thought he was too weak back then. She realized that she had also allowed herself to be weak, for even though she would have welcomed him, due to a failure to act on both their parts, Eddie remained just a friend while George became her capturer.

  ***

  Sid wouldn’t have made her do this either.

  ***

  Sunday, November 12th, 1989

  So much happened in one day. First, Miriam called out of the blue to find out how she and the children were doing. Her teenagers were not at home: Drew had gone over to a friend’s, excited to play some new video game, and Elaine was also with a friend—she’d said something about shopping, a movie. Or maybe that was yesterday, and it was the library she’d gone to today—Alice couldn’t remember. George was also away—another work project he was working hard on as far as she recalled him mumbling as he left. So Miriam decided to stop by the house.

  Miriam greeted her with a kiss on one cheek, then the other, then stared into her eyes for a few seconds.

  “Come with me to India,” she said, as if asking Alice to go with her to the kitchen, or to the grocery store.

  “To India?” Alice felt her eyebrows rise and she wondered if Miriam had just been on another drug binge. But looking at Miriam, her clear white eyes, her focused stare, she knew that Miriam was simply being herself.