Saving Alice

by David Lewis

  Later that evening, in front of a cable sports recap, I was eating a TV dinner—something chickenlike in texture but without the familiar taste—when Donna finally called. It had been a week and a half since she’d left.

  At first, hearing her voice on the phone startled me. “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “Fine,” she said, and then asked about me.

  “Same,” I replied, trying to read the tone in her voice. I asked about her job and about Sally and we made small talk for a few minutes as if she’d never left, as if she were sitting across the table from me.

  I wish you’d come home, I was tempted to blurt.

  “How is Alycia?” I asked instead.

  “Still navigating through the maze of junior high society,” she replied. “Stephen…”

  “I miss you, Donna.”

  The line went silent. I heard her clear her throat. “Stephen … I’m going through with it. I’m filing for divorce.”

  I felt a shudder go through my soul. “So soon?”

  “I’m sorry, but … isn’t it pointless to drag this out further?”

  I began to gently argue. I asked her to take more time, but she refused. I told her I still loved her, but her voice only turned cold. I asked her to consider Alycia’s situation, but she told me she had.

  “You’ve talked to her?”

  “I don’t have to, Stephen.”

  While harboring a small hope in my heart, I finally gave in.

  We proceeded to discuss the fair division of our property, which, considering our impoverished state, progressed without argument. I mentioned the seven thousand again. After acquiring the loan, I’d decided to follow through with my original intention of giving Donna half of our savings. Her response was different than I’d expected. Apparently, a few days in Sally’s apartment had registered. She softly acquiesced. “I guess that’s only fair…”

  “Good,” I said. “And don’t you want child support?”

  She sighed into the phone. “No.”

  We had carefully avoided the topic of custody, saving it for last. And then something occurred to me. Maybe she planned to move out of state, perhaps back to Kansas, hoping to avoid any judicial prohibition. Maybe that’s why she’d been so eager to move out. I voiced the question as tactfully as possible.

  A moment of silence passed. “I haven’t ruled it out. But I’d discuss it with you first.”

  “I’m sure you’ve reviewed child custody law.”

  “So, let me get this straight. The moment I leave, you suddenly decide to become a father again?”

  Her choice of words stung, and she apologized immediately. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “Give me another chance, Donna.”

  “Another chance…” Her words trailed off, but I detected some confusion in her tone.

  “I meant … with Alycia.”

  “I know what you meant,” she said, her voice rising.

  I tried to sound as reasonable as possible, with no trace of defensiveness. “If I were a good father would you be taking her away?”

  “I never said we were moving away.”

  “But … would you?”

  She didn’t answer, and I hoped she was thinking it through and not just getting angry.

  “Give me a chance to prove myself,” I repeated. “I don’t care about joint custody, but I want to see my daughter.”

  “And I want you to see her, but she needs some time.”

  “One more chance,” I repeated. “Just one more, and if I blow it, you can do what you want.” As I said this, I felt a small shiver but dismissed it. I can do this, I reminded myself.

  “Oh, Stephen…”

  “Then you agree?” I asked, hoping she’d sensed a sure thing.

  “I would never deny you the right to see your daughter.”

  “But you might move, right?”

  She hesitated, and I repeated my offer.

  After another pause, her tone turned conciliatory, “Okay, then.”

  I sighed with relief. The deal was done. If I blew it again, Donna had my permission to leave the state.

  “One promise broken,” she reminded me as we finished our discussion, and my heart constricted.

  “I’ll be there this Saturday,” I said. “Will you have Alycia ready?”

  “That’s up to Alycia,” Donna replied firmly. “She’s already given you her answer.”

  “So, you’re not—”

  “I’m not going to make her. Have you seen how well that works?”

  I had, and it wasn’t pretty. Forcing Alycia to do something was like the old cliché about dragging a horse to water without getting the horse to drink. Only in Alycia’s case, you couldn’t drag her to the water or get her to drink it. Sometimes the mere suggestion would polarize her into the opposite course. On a regular basis, we employed reverse-reverse psychology, and even that was “iffy” at best.

  I affected as polite a tone as I could muster. “Would you at least remind her?”

  Donna paused. “I’ll remind her, but that’s it.”

  “Then I’ll be there,” I said cheerfully, as if Donna had actually agreed to something difficult.

  “And if you’re not?” she asked, driving the point home.

  “We have a deal.”

  I hung up, and my spirits wavered. Donna’s resolve seemed steely and determined, and she sounded more testy than I remembered. It was a side to her I couldn’t recall, and I wondered if she needed to stay angry in order to pull this off. I also knew that in spite of my own determination, the odds were against me. One mistake, and Alycia would be moving to Kansas—the land of Dorothy, Toto, and the Cowardly Lion.

  Down in my cave, I turned on the computer and pulled up some old trading files for further review. Now that I’d actually pulled the trigger, I decided to grant myself an exception, if for no other reason than to maintain confidence in my system.

  According to my notes, thirty percent of the divergence instances resulted in significant profit while ten percent resulted in small yet positive outcomes. However, sixty percent of the instances resulted in losses, some small, some big, but not enough to derail the forty-percent profits—but only if the losses were taken quickly, according to plan.

  It was two o’clock when I collapsed on the downstairs couch in my clothes.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  By Friday midmorning, the market appeared set for another down day. Combined with the previous down days, yet still within the long-term rising moving average, another S&P dip would be significant enough to trigger my signal.

  Larry and I ate our weekly lunch together, this time at the Sirloin Pit, just off Sixth Avenue. As usual, my steak-and-potatoes friend ordered … just that. I ordered a salad and a side of corn.

  “Have you talked to your wife?” Larry asked, placing the cloth napkin in his lap.

  I informed him of last night’s divorce discussion, and he seemed shocked. “Already? What about a trial separation? More counseling, perhaps?”

  Despite my attempts to explain, for the duration of the meal, I subjected myself to Larry’s gentle tirade—everything I was doing wrong, and everything I should be doing right. If he knew I was trading, he would have coughed his steak across the room.

  I was surprised at his scorn, and tried several times to change the subject, to no avail. He acted as if he had something personally at stake in our marriage. I suppose his attitude might have been a clue for what would happen next, but looking back on the whole thing, Larry was the last person I would have suspected.

  At the end of the meal, we drove back to the office in silence.

  Settling back in my office, I put the lunch encounter behind me and tackled the meticulous tasks of accounting with gusto. By the end of the day, the market had indeed dropped enough to trigger an entry signal. Placing a stop above the day’s high, I was now ready for Monday’s opening, back in the probability business at last, heady with anticipation, but dog-tired.

&nbs
p; On Saturday morning, with yet another night on the couch behind me, I awoke early. After showering and shaving, I took a morning drive to Richmond Lake, inflicting myself with a worst-case-scenario talk in preparation for the humiliation of sitting in front of Sally’s apartment waiting for an absent Alycia. Pay your dues, I thought, adjusting my expectations to zero.

  Driving back, I stopped at McDonald’s and ordered a breakfast sandwich. When I asked the clerk to hold the egg and sausage, she stared at me.

  “Like a grilled cheese sandwich,” I said, smiling.

  They held them but included a hash-brown wafer by mistake, which I discarded. I’d long since developed an intolerance for fried foods, and I’d never liked eggs. Besides, it was the coffee I was after, and while Donna had always ignored my nutritional hypocrisy, Alycia was all over it—especially when I’d conveniently forget to order French fries on family vacations. “So Dad … when did coffee become a health food?”

  I arrived at nine-fifty, pulled into a fortuitously empty parking space in front of Sally’s apartment, several cars to the south of Donna’s minivan, and debated whether to buzz the apartment. The streets had received a dusting of snow the night before, creating a nostalgic winter wonderland. The stark tree branches were fuzzy white, as if someone had tossed white cotton at sticks coated with honey.

  If Alycia showed up today, I would be amazed. I wasn’t even prepared for the possibility. What would we do? Where would we go?

  At ten o’clock, I walked up the sidewalk to the rust-stained stucco building. I read the old apartment list, then buzzed Sally’s apartment intercom.

  Donna’s voice came on immediately. “I’m sorry, Stephen. She’s not here.”

  “I’ll wait, then.”

  “In the cold?”

  I shrugged as if she could see me. “In the car,” I replied. “Did you remind her?”

  A moment passed, then “Yes,” and a static click.

  Back in the car, I settled in for what I assumed would be an hour of uninterrupted study. Pushing my seat back, I began rereading Reminiscences of a Stock Market Operator, the classic story of one man’s stock-trading adventures. An occasional turn of the key to start the engine and heater kept me from turning into an ice block.

  Thirty minutes later, I was interrupted by a soft rapping on the window. It was Donna, wearing gray sweats beneath a long maroon coat.

  I pressed the power button to lower the window, and Donna leaned in. The interior of my car was immediately graced with the scent of lavender cologne, her favorite, with a touch of apple shampoo. I was startled by her appearance. She must have lost ten pounds. Her damp blond hair was tied back, and her lips looked ashen.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I warned you.”

  “I’m not complaining.” I reached in my back pocket, removed my wallet, and pulled out the check for thirty-five hundred dollars. I handed it to her. She examined it without expression, then folded it and shoved it into her coat pocket. Our eyes locked for a moment, and she looked away.

  “Would you give her a message for me?” I said, squelching the lump in my throat.

  Donna raised her eyebrows skeptically, and that gesture alone surprised me. Not because I hadn’t seen it before, but because I could see myself already forgetting her mannerisms.

  “Just tell her I’ll be back next week at the same time.”

  Donna gave me a feeble smile and nodded, then pushed away from the car. I watched her walk up the sidewalk and even that seemed new to me somehow, as if I hadn’t seen her in years, not days.

  I went home and read the afternoon away—one of Donna’s favorite classics: The Pearl. In the evening, Larry called. “Doing anything?”

  “Licking my wounds from our last encounter.”

  Larry cleared his throat and rambled something about working too long and getting irritable. Even his apology had a lecturing tone.

  “Truce?” I asked.

  “Truce,” he agreed.

  We went to a movie, a comedy. While I found it amusing, and while other people on all sides of us were in stitches, Larry never laughed once. The prospect of ordering his favorite snack, popcorn, failed to cut through his gruffness.

  When I got back home, my phone light was blinking. I answered it and found a message from my mother, inviting me out for lunch tomorrow. “Better yet, Stephen. Come to church. Your father is pinch-hitting for Tom Northrup.”

  I knew Tom as the Sunday school teacher at the local Lutheran church, but I was surprised they had begun attending there on a regular basis.

  Just thinking about it raised my ire. My mother adored the Pentecostal church in Aberdeen, and it represented one more example of how Mom’s entire life had become subservient to my father’s selfcentered agenda.

  Grandpa’s church isn’t as painful as Mom’s, Alycia once muttered from the backseat on a rare Sunday visit to Frederick. Donna had glanced at me accusingly, saying nothing, but the message was obvious: Alycia’s lukewarm spiritual state was my fault.

  It was still early when I called Mom back. She responded to my voice as if the president was on the line. “Hello, Stephen!”

  “When does the service begin?”

  “Eleven,” she answered hopefully. I hadn’t attended church with my parents in several years, mostly due to Donna’s participation in the choir at her own church, a handy excuse for me. “Your father is teaching the Sunday school at nine,” my mother said, repeating her phone message.

  “I won’t make it to that,” I said. Listening to my father teach would have been unbearably over the top for me.

  “That’s fine,” she said.

  Years ago, I’d come partially clean with my mother. “I’m not much into institutional Christianity.”

  She’d smiled quickly. “Neither was Jesus.”

  I decided to quit while I was ahead, especially since she seemed to forgive my haphazard church attendance. Perhaps she preferred to overlook the obvious, seeing only what she wanted to see.

  After hanging up, I considered my apparel options, which meant traipsing back into the bedroom Donna had completely vacated—the books were now gone.

  In the closet, I discovered a gray suit, then considered my collection of ties. I’ve rarely met the man who didn’t depend on his wife for specific clothing guidance, and while I wasn’t half bad in helping Larry with his tie selection, choosing one for myself revealed a glaring blind spot. Even now, Donna’s instructive voice echoed in my ear: “Wear the blue tie with your white shirt. Wear the gold-and-silver tie with your cream color.”

  I couldn’t recall how many times Donna remarked to me, at least during the early years: “You’re going out in public dressed like that?”

  “Of course not,” I’d reply, grinning. “Just testing you.”

  Donna would lead me back to the closet, and with a supportive pat on my arm, help me pick out some combination that would “dazzle my prospects.”

  “Maybe I’m cutting my own throat here,” she told me after I had redressed, “but you look positively delicious in those slacks, ol’ sport!” Then she laughed. “Just don’t look any woman in the eyes!”

  “Yeah,” I replied wryly. “Real danger there.”

  Donna grabbed my tie, tightening it to my neck. “You don’t think women notice you?”

  I raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  “We women are surreptitious about our ‘noticing,’ ” she explained. “On the other hand, you guys practically foam at the mouth in the presence of long hair and legs.”

  She patted my chest and pecked my cheek. “But that’s okay,” she added, brushing my shoulders. “As long as you don’t know you’re cute, we’re safe.”

  Despite our fair share of arguments over the years, we never quarreled about money. “It’s the most corruptive force on the planet,” Donna once told me, a feeble attempt to console me over my trading failures. She’d lost two of her local friends defending my reputation, but she never looked back.

  “Good riddance
,” she said, referring to them. “You made a mistake. You’re paying it back. You could have declared bankruptcy, but you didn’t, and I’m proud of you.”

  Eventually, Alycia discovered the secret. And while she’d heard rumors about her father at school, she hadn’t stormed in the house and confronted me. Perhaps by that point, bad news about her father didn’t surprise her, especially since my pedestal days were long gone. Could I blame her? It’s no wonder Alycia had lost admiration for dear old Dad—what with learning about Alice, living with insidious poverty, and experiencing the slow disintegration of her family’s reputation.

  While the financial court judgment weighed on our shoulders, Donna had carried on with courage, taking a second job without complaining.

  “Don’t we have plenty of food?” she once asked. “A roof over our head? Loyal friends?” She snuggled up beside me on the couch. “And don’t we have each other?”

  I remembered pulling her closer, kissing her cheek, immensely grateful for her loyalty and determined to become a better man for it.

  At the time, I think Donna saw my failure as an opportunity, not a tragedy—a chance to draw closer, to gain strength from each other, and maybe even save our marriage.

  Instead, it seemed to take what little we had left and tear it all apart.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The following day, Sunday, I awakened at five o’clock, my stomach in knots. I completed my morning routine, eating Alycia’s three-month-old stale Cheerios, and absorbing three cups of coffee.

  At ten-thirty I headed north to Frederick, on Highway 20, slowing my pace when it appeared I was ahead of schedule. My parents lived next to the parsonage across from a weed-infested former football field. The white wooden church raised its traditional steeple only a few blocks away.

  I parked in the side parking lot, along with twenty or so older sedans. A handful of new cars stood out like a bald spot on a teenager. Pastor Neall, a brown-haired young man wearing the standard vestments, greeted the parishioners as they entered the sanctuary.

  “You must be Stephen,” he said to me, shaking my hand firmly. Apparently he’d snoozed our previous meetings, at least three of them by my count, and my mother must have alerted him to this one. Next he introduced me to an usher who closed the door behind me as I entered the sanctuary. I was surprised by the attendance. The small room was packed. Where do they all come from?