The Evolution of Alice

by David Alexander Robertson

  “How are you, Kathy?” Edward said, trying his best not to sound like The Fonz.

  “I’m okay I guess,” she said.

  “You know,” he said, “if you’re going to walk on one side of the road, it’s better to walk on the side where cars are driving toward you, so you can see them coming. It’s safer.”

  “How will I ever get a ride if the cars going my way are on the other side of the road?”

  “Good point,” he said, “but maybe getting rides with strangers isn’t the best idea to begin with.”

  “Nobody I know is going to drive me where I want to go,” she said.

  “Strangers might not drive you where you want to go either, Kathy,” he said.

  Kathy picked up her bag and started to walk away in a huff.

  “I have a long way to walk, then,” she said.

  Edward thought of letting the girl go but could imagine what Nicole would say when he talked to her next.

  “Wait,” he said.

  Kathy stopped. She turned around.

  “Where are you headed? The city?” he said.

  “Alaska,” she said.

  “Alaska? Where in Alaska are you headed?”

  Kathy put her bag back onto the gravel at the side of the highway.

  “I don’t really know for sure. It doesn’t matter, though. When I get there I’m going to go farther and farther.”

  Edward looked both ways, as though it were necessary.

  “Can I come across?” he said.

  Kathy nodded. Edward walked across the highway and soon was standing beside the girl. He looked carefully at the pillowcase at her feet and tried to guess what was in it, what a 10-year-old girl would pack. He’d seen fuller pillowcases on Halloween; there couldn’t have been much in it.

  “What’s in there?” he said, motioning to the bag.

  “Just stuff I’ll need. I got some extra clothes, a book, my toothbrush, and a couple of oatmeal bars.”

  “Did you bring toothpaste?”

  She thought about it for a moment, and, with a disappointed look, shook her head.

  “What about water? You’re going to need water if you’re going to be walking very far.”

  “Not really,” she said. “I mean, no.”

  “Ahhh, well, travelling 101 is, you bring water and toothpaste. What’s in Alaska?”

  “A cousin of mine.”

  “Okay. Here’s what I think you should do, and this is just a suggestion. Why don’t I bring you back home, you can get water and toothpaste, and then we can talk about going to Alaska, if you still want to. Have you gone very far from home?”

  “I don’t really know. I’ve been walking for a while.”

  “Isn’t anybody looking for you? Do your parents know you’re gone?”

  “My mom would hardly notice,” she said very quietly.

  “What about your dad?” he said.

  “If I would’ve seen my mom or my uncle coming I would’ve hid anyway. They would’ve just got all mad.”

  “If you were my daughter, or my niece, I might be mad if you were gone, too, you know,” he said.

  “I guess so,” she said.

  They stood there at the side of the highway in silence. Kathy looked to the right for a long time, down the highway, as though she could see all the way to Alaska. Then, she looked to the left, and Edward could see she was already homesick, despite how badly she wanted to get where she was going.

  “Do you know the way home?” he said.

  She nodded.

  “Can I drive you there? It won’t take very long in the car I bet.”

  Kathy didn’t take long to decide. She nodded her head again. They walked over to Edward’s vehicle. He went around to the passenger side, opened the door for Kathy, and instructed her to place the camera (very carefully) in the back seat to make room, which she did. When she got into the vehicle, he closed the door and breathed a sigh of relief before hopping around to the other side and getting into the vehicle himself. Once more, he was on the highway, this time going even slower, around 85 km/h.

  “Do you mind if I ask you why you’re planning on going to Alaska? I mean, if it’s not just to visit your cousin,” Edward said.

  She thought about it for a moment.

  “The other day my cousin called, and I picked up the phone because my mom was sleeping in the other room. We were talking about how everybody was doing, because my cousin has lots of family where I live, and then he asked me what I was having for breakfast. I told him I wasn’t having breakfast because it was after noon and I’d just finished lunch. He said he was silly because he forgot about the time difference.”

  “Okay,” Edward said, and this was followed by a long silence. Then Kathy said, as though Edward hadn’t understood her, “Well that’s why I want to go to Alaska, and then even farther. My cousin said the more west you got the earlier in the day it got. So I’m going to keep walking and walking until it’s yesterday, and then last week, and then a few weeks ago.”

  “Ahh, I see. You think … I mean, you want to go back in time.”

  “Yeah, I want to go back in time. Not too far, but far enough. I just got to figure out how far I have to go.”

  Edward hesitated to explain time zones to Kathy because he had an awful feeling that by doing so he would essentially be telling her there was no Santa Claus. But, maybe that was the only way he could convince her not to go back onto the highway all by herself. Even if her mom and her uncle were home when they got there, Kathy might just leave another time, back on her journey to Alaska.

  “Kathy, there are different places in the world that have different times. Some times are earlier than ours, and some times are later than ours.”

  “So, you can go to the future too?”

  “No, no. What I mean is whether or not it’s 12 o’clock here and nine o’clock over in Alaska, it’s the same time everywhere. Like, everything’s happening now. You can’t go back in time.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said, but her face held the slightest hint of desperation, which meant, to Edward, she did understand, mostly, and simply didn’t want to understand. He wondered what could be so important that she’d want to go back in time, but decided it wasn’t his place to ask, especially now, as she looked sadder by the moment.

  “What’s happened has happened and nobody can change it,” he ended up saying.

  “Oh,” she said, and turned her head away to look out the window.

  “You know, there are things I want to change. I think anybody would want to change something, if they could.”

  “What do you want to change?” she said as she turned back toward Edward, where he could see a few wet lines down her cheeks from tears.

  “I’m on my way to visit a friend of mine who died, and I wish he didn’t die. I wish I could go back and, I don’t know, help him.”

  “That’s sad,” she said.

  “Yeah, it is. But, I can’t go back. So, I’m going there to visit him and remember things about him I liked.”

  “I want to help somebody, too,” she said.

  “Hmmm. Are there things you can remember about that somebody? Things you liked?”

  She nodded her head, and right there, Edward could tell she was thinking about those things because a tiny smile presented itself.

  “It’s right up here, turn right,” she said.

  Edward nodded, and when the time came, turned right. They drove through some more forested area before the trees cleared to reveal a large open space, where in the distance there were houses visible.

  “Do you ever worry about dying?” Kathy said.

  “Oh, not really,” he said.

  “I do. I worry about it lots.”

  “Lots of people do. You know, I have this person I talk to from time to time when I’m worried, and he’s really smart. You know what he tells me?”

  “What?”

  “He says worry has never changed anything for the better.”

  Th
is was followed by quiet, and Edward began to think about the words he’d just spoken. It felt like he’d been talking to himself. He knew very well he worried about almost everything under the sun, and that worry had brought him to the doctor’s office for everything from headaches all the way to stomachaches. But he was never actually sick. At the height of Nicole’s frustration with Edward’s anxiety, she’d said, “If there is something wrong with you, do you want to spend the rest of your time worrying about it?” He got annoyed at her then but now began to see what she’d meant.

  They kept driving, and as the houses got closer he recognized they were on a First Nations reserve. It wasn’t what he thought a reserve would look like, but he wasn’t sure what he expected. More desolation, maybe—a bunch of boarded-up houses, sad looking people, casinos. The houses weren’t the nicest he’d ever seen; they looked quickly built and more like large sheds than homesteads, but, somehow, they were welcoming and warm, and he liked how things just lay unattended in yards, seemingly without a worry about theft. He saw trampolines, toys, quads, golf clubs, and many other things. You’d never see something like that in the city. Finally, just a couple of kilometres from the highway, Kathy said they’d arrived at her home. “Home” was a trailer with an enormous tree directly behind it. A tire swing hung from the tree’s largest branch, and a big open field past the tree stretched back forever, all the way to a tree line visible on the horizon. Edward pulled up alongside a line of large rocks blocking the driveway from the road and turned off the engine.

  “Thanks for the ride,” Kathy said as she got out of the car.

  Edward got out of the car too and thought it was best to walk her up to the door.

  “You think you can do that? Stop worrying?” Edward said.

  “I can if you can,” she said.

  They arrived at the door and Kathy walked inside. Instantly, Edward heard a cry from inside the house. Not wanting to intrude, he quietly shimmied over a few feet to look. He saw that a woman, undoubtedly Kathy’s mom, had buried the girl deep within her arms. Another girl, a few years younger, dressed just like a Disney princess, was standing beside the two of them, crying like everybody else, trying to find a way inside the prolonged embrace, eventually collapsing on top of them. A man was there too, standing in the kitchen, and he noticed Edward outside the front door. He stepped outside the trailer.

  “Where’d you find her?” he said.

  Understandably, he sounded distrustful.

  “Oh, just up the highway,” Edward said, and noticed the man’s interrogative look, so decided to be more specific. “I don’t know, about seven or eight kilometres away?”

  “Yeah? That far, eh? And where were you headed?” the man said.

  “I was on my way to the cemetery just a little ways from here. You know the one?”

  “There’re a lot of cemeteries around here.”

  “Look,” Edward said, “I get it. You don’t know me from Adam.”

  “That’s right,” the man said, “and that’s our little girl in there.”

  “She mentioned an uncle, I guess that’d be you?”

  “That’d be me. That’s what they call me, anyway.”

  “Okay, I just wanted to help. She was looking pretty lost out there, and, this might sound strange because we’ve established that you don’t know me, but I couldn’t stand thinking of her getting picked up by some creep.”

  The man thought about it for a moment. He looked back at the group hug going on inside the trailer then turned back to Edward. He stared at Edward for a long time, as though sizing him up. It made Edward feel a bit sheepish, even though he knew he’d done nothing wrong. In fact, he was sure he’d done just the opposite. He gave the man a half grin and tried to look as trustworthy as possible.

  “I’m not a creep,” Edward added for the sake of clarification.

  Finally, the man nodded.

  “I guess I should thank you for bringing her home, then,” he said. “I couldn’t find her, me. Drove up and down the highway for a while. Must’ve been hidin’ on me or something.”

  “I’m happy to help,” Edward said.

  “So she was just walking down the highway?” the man said.

  “Yeah, she was walking down the highway. Uhhh, said she was headed to Alaska?”

  “Alaska, eh?”

  “Yeah, she thought she could go back in time. Time zones, you know. Kids sometimes get confused by them.”

  At that, the man shook his head. Edward could see the same sadness on the man he’d seen on Kathy.

  “God damn it,” the man said. “Ain’t that the thing.”

  “Why’d she want to do that? Go back in time?”

  “Few weeks back, her little sister got run over and killed, right here in the driveway. Just like that.”

  “That’s awful,” Edward said.

  “Yeah, it’s been pretty awful. Been hard on her, you know. Hard on the whole family,” the man said.

  “They ever find out who did it? Who ran her over?” Edward said.

  “Nah,” the man said, “and I don’t think they’re gonna neither. All we know is that the car had four wheels.”

  “That must make things harder.”

  “Maybe it did at first, but now I think we’re all just trying to heal, you know? Trying not to think about that shit.”

  “I don’t think I’d get over that,” Edward said. “Not knowing.”

  “Well, none of that’s gonna bring her back. You just gotta keep living as best you can without her, and hope she’s somewhere better than here.”

  Less than half an hour later, Edward pulled off the highway into a side road leading up to the cemetery. He parked in front of an old-fashioned white church, complete with a roof shaped like a triangle and a steeple at the front that thrust a small white cross into the heavens. It looked under-used, or even abandoned, judging by the long grass growing up against the cracked steps leading to the front door, which was hanging precariously by one hinge. Still, the church was a pretty little thing and gave off a certain aura particular to churches, whether you believed in what they were built for or not.

  A delicate fence enclosed the cemetery. It was composed of wood posts and wire and a small metal gate Edward pushed open to enter. Since he’d been there last, there were no new residents at the place—still only Jeff’s headstone, which was nearest to the gate, and another, older, headstone near the back corner, the two almost as far away from each other as you could get. They weren’t exactly keeping each other company. In the opposite corner to the other headstone, there was a large pine tree, the only mature tree on the lot, which, Edward learned during Jeff’s burial, had been planted by Jeff himself years earlier. At either side of Jeff’s headstone there were two saplings that would one day mature and become tall pine trees, like guards standing over him. Nicky and her grandma, who had planted the new trees, would be pleased to know they were growing fine.

  Over the next several minutes Edward spent time snapping pictures of everything in front of him; the church, the mature pine tree, the fence, Jeff’s headstone, and, of course, the two saplings (which enjoyed the bulk of Edward’s attention, posing nicely like two models). All told, he took about 50 pictures and, after scanning through them, was quite proud of the quality. He decided some of the pictures might look nice hanging on a wall.

  After putting the camera away, Edward went and stood beside Jeff’s headstone. He didn’t say anything. He was certain people often said lovely things when visiting headstones, but, truthfully, he thought doing so felt a bit silly. He thought if Jeff was anywhere, he certainly wasn’t in the cemetery, even though it was a nice, peaceful location, much more appealing than Edward had originally thought for a final resting place. All he did, in the end, was silently wish that Jeff continued to be in a place where he was safe and secure, just where Jeff had hoped everybody should be. He thought of Kathy in that moment, too, and wished the same thing for her, and the little sister she had lost. He imagined Kathy in a c
emetery somewhere, standing in front of her little sister’s headstone. He never found out how young the little girl was. Edward took a deep breath and tried to fight back a tear that had welled up in his eye. At least, he thought, Jeff had lived a relatively long life, far longer than that little girl. He thought about what he’d said to Kathy, that she should focus on the good things. He hoped she could do that. God knew it was hard enough for a grown man.

  Soon, he was travelling back down Highway 57, his music playing through the car’s speakers and the cruise control set to a reasonable 105 km/h. He picked up his ham sandwich and considered taking a bite. It was, after all, well past lunch.

  FOUR

  Gideon stood with Kathy and Jayne at the front of the community hall. They needed to have the funeral in there because almost the whole rez had shown up and the church wasn’t big enough. All the people were sitting quietly behind Gideon and the girls, and the only sounds were the odd sniffling and baby crying. Alice was behind them too, sitting there with three empty chairs beside her. Gideon had tried to convince her to come up with them, but she wouldn’t. She said it was too hard. She said that, the last time she’d seen Grace, her little baby was beautiful, smiling and alive. At no point had she asked to see Grace’s body, and Gideon understood why. He thought Alice probably had perfect memories of Grace and didn’t want the bad ones taking over the good ones. He did wonder, though, if she was one of the people sniffling behind them. Maybe she’d used up all her tears. All he’d seen her do today was stare blankly at nothing, somewhere over the casket, as though there was something to be seen against the cream-coloured back wall, like a slide show of cute baby pictures. He’d seen that done before.

  Jayne said the casket was so small it looked like a doll’s bed. Gideon agreed. Kathy said that Grace looked prettier than she’d ever seen her. Alice had chosen the most beautiful dress she could find, even though she didn’t want to look at it, now that it was on Grace. Gideon said that he thought she looked real pretty, although her beautiful olive skin was paler now, as though covered lightly with baby powder. He thought Grace, lying peacefully within the tiny casket, was a perfect-sized doll for the little bed.