"Anyway"--Nick looked at his watch--"I'll get back to the office. I guess we'd better talk about this later. I don't know what sort of punishment you're thinking, but obviously it has to be severe--"
"What do you mean?" said Alice. "I think we should talk to her now. Right now. Both of us."
Nick seemed startled. "Now? You want me to be there, too?"
"Of course I do," said Alice. "I think we should take her for a drive. And we're not going to jump in and start punishing her. I hate that word. Punishment."
"Oh, sorry. I guess we should reward her. Say 'Well done, honey, maybe you should consider a career in hairdressing.'"
Alice giggled. Nick smiled. The sunlight was shining directly onto his face. He shielded his eyes with one hand and said, "I'll know when you get your memory back."
"How?"
"The way you look at me. As soon as you remember, I'll see it in your eyes."
"Will they shoot death rays at you?" said Alice.
Nick smiled sadly. "Something like that." He looked again at his watch. "I've got a meeting at midday. I guess I could move it." He seemed uncertain. "So you mean both of us take her for a drive somewhere?"
Alice said, "Is this really so unusual?"
"Normally you'd take charge and make it clear that my assistance was not required."
"There's a new Alice in town," said Alice.
"You're not wrong about that." Nick seemed about to say something. He stopped and looked over her shoulder. "Here comes our little thug."
Madison was walking toward them, her school backpack held loosely in one hand so it was almost dragging along the ground, her head hanging.
"Who am I going with?" she said when she got to them, not meeting their eyes.
"Both of us," said Alice.
"Both of you?" Madison looked up and frowned. She seemed frightened.
"Come here," said Alice.
Madison stomped over to her, still staring at the ground, and Alice pulled her close and hugged her.
"We're going to work this out," said Alice quietly into her hair. "You, your dad, and me are going to sit on the beach, eat ice creams, and work out whatever the problem is."
Madison gave a tiny gasp of surprise and burst into tears.
Elisabeth's Homework for Jeremy He keeps saying, "Turn the television off."
And I keep saying, "Not yet."
He turned it off himself a while ago, and as soon as he did, I screamed over and over, as if he was hurting me.
A tiny bit dramatic. I will feel embarrassed later.
But it did hurt me. That loud buzzing silence after the TV was switched off was actually painful to my eardrums.
He was probably worried the neighbors would call the police. After all, he looks exactly like the sort of man you expect to see dragged away in handcuffs for domestic violence. So he shrugged and turned it back on.
I am watching Oprah now. She's talking about an exciting new diet. The audience is excited. I'm excited, J. I might try it. I'm taking notes.
They sat on the harbor-side beach at Manly, near the ferry stop, in the same spot where they'd had coffee that early morning after they drove Madison through the night when she was a baby.
They even had the same blue-and-white-checked picnic rug. It was in the boot of Nick's car. The blue wasn't as bright as it was in Alice's memory, but her palms remembered its nubbly feel.
"Where did we get this rug?" asked Alice as they sat down.
"I don't know," said Nick. He sounded defensive. "You can have it if you want. I didn't realize it was in my car."
Oh, for heaven's sake. She hadn't meant she wanted it. It was yet another glimpse of how stupid their lives had become. Would she really have wanted to make a point about who got the picnic rug?
Madison plonked herself down and sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, chin down, lank hair falling down on either side of her face. (Alice itched to snip it off. She would look so much prettier with short hair. Actually that could be the perfect "punishment"! You cut her hair, kid, so I'm going to cut yours.)
After her tears in the schoolyard, Madison hadn't said a word. Nick had driven in his shiny car, and he'd spent a lot of time talking on his hands-free mobile. He laughed. He listened. He gave short, sharp instructions. He said, "Let me think about it." He said, "Well, that's a disaster," while glancing over his shoulder to switch lanes. He said, "Well done. That's great news." He was such a boss.
"Do you enjoy work at the moment?" Alice asked him at one point in between calls.
Nick glanced over at her. "Yes," he said, after a few seconds. "I love it."
"That's great," said Alice, happy for him.
Nick raised an eyebrow. "You really think so?"
"Of course," said Alice. "Why wouldn't I?"
"Nothing," said Nick, and Alice could sense Madison listening carefully from the backseat.
Nick had turned his phone off now and had left his jacket and tie in the car. Now he was taking off his shoes and socks. Alice looked at his bare feet digging into the sand. His feet were as familiar as her own. How could she not be with someone forever when even their feet--his huge, not especially attractive feet, with their long hairy toes--felt like home?
"Beautiful," said Nick, gesturing at the smooth, hard, yellow sand, the huge turquoise sky, the ferry chugging its way across the harbor to the city. "Beautiful." He said it in the same satisfied tone that he would use to describe a good meal at a restaurant, as if the weather and the beach had been prepared especially for him, and presented on a plate, and yes, thank you, it was all up to his high standards and there would be a generous tip as a result. It was so typical Nick. He held up his face to the sun and closed his eyes.
Alice took off her own boots (beautiful--her taste was impeccable, if she did say so herself) and pulled off her socks.
"They're Tom's soccer socks," said Madison, looking up from her knees.
"I was in a rush," said Alice.
Madison gave her a look. "And that scarf you're wearing is from Olivia's dress-up box."
"I know, but it's so beautiful." Alice lifted up the gauzy material.
Madison gave her an inscrutable look and lowered her chin again.
Nick opened his eyes. "Well, Madison--"
"You promised ice creams," said Madison, glaring at Alice, as if this was to be yet another in a long line of broken promises.
"That's right, I did," said Alice.
Nick sighed. "I'll go." He put his shoes back on and looked down at Madison. "Don't you be telling your brother and sister that you got ice cream on the beach, will you? Or next thing, we'll have all the Love children suspended from school."
Madison giggled. "Okay."
As Nick walked off, Madison said, "I don't want to say what happened in front of Daddy."
It must be girl stuff. "All right. Just tell me."
Madison dropped her chin back to her knees and said in a muffled voice, "Chloe said that you and Mr. Gordon had--"
Alice didn't catch the last word.
"Pardon?" she said.
"Sex!" Madison choked out. "She said that you and Mr. Gordon probably did sex in his office. Like, a hundred times."
Mr. Gordon. Oh. Dominick.
"Darling," began Alice, wondering where to start. For one thing she wasn't sure if it was true. Surely they wouldn't have had sex in his office? Would they?
"I nearly threw up. I had to take sort of deep breaths and put my hand over my mouth. You didn't, did you? You never took off your clothes in front of Mr. Gordon, did you?"
Well, if she had, surely Chloe wasn't privy to the information. Presumably Dominick hadn't made an announcement about it at school assembly.
"Chloe Harper is a horrible liar," said Alice decisively.
"I know," said Madison with relief. "That's what I said!" She looked out at the water and pushed her hair back behind her ears. "Then she said that I was the ugliest girl in the whole school, but that part wasn't a lie, that part was tr
ue."
Alice's heart broke for her. "It certainly was not true."
"I got this feeling," said Madison. "A feeling like my head was going to explode. She was standing in front of me and I got out my scissors for art and I cut off her plait. I just went, snip! And it fell straight to the ground. And then when she turned around, I threw my cake at her. It wrecked the cake. Nobody even got to taste it. It was the best cake I ever made."
"Did you threaten to stab her with the scissors?"
"No! She just made that bit up so I would get into more trouble."
"Is that the truth?"
"Yes," said Madison.
"Okay," said Alice. Well, that was something.
Alice said, "You know, Madison, people are going to say mean things to you all through your life, and if you keep reacting like that, you're going to end up in jail."
Madison seemed to consider that. Alice wondered whether her wise, tough-love words were sinking in.
"Actually, I'm too young for jail," said Madison.
"Well, now you are, but when you're grown up--"
"When I'm a grown-up it won't matter."
"You mean, you won't care if you go to jail? I think you will."
Madison rolled her eyes. "No. I won't care if people say mean things to me, because I'll be grown up. I can just say, 'Who cares? I'm going to France.' "
Ah. Of course. Alice could remember thinking something similar when she was a child. Once you were a grown-up nobody could hurt your feelings because how could your feelings possibly be hurt when you could drive a car wherever you wanted.
Before she could think of a way to answer without disillusioning her (what was there to look forward to otherwise?), a shadow fell over them.
"Ice cream delivery." Nick was standing above them, holding three ice cream cones.
"I assume you still like rum and raisin," he said to Alice.
"Of course." Fancy having to ask her that.
They sat and ate their ice creams, looking out at the water.
"Madison has just told me what Chloe said to her," said Alice. "And it was something nasty and untrue."
"Okay," said Nick carefully. He licked his ice cream and looked at them both.
"So, I guess we need to help Madison find some better ways to react when she feels angry."
"I always take ten deep breaths before I say anything when I'm angry," said Nick.
"No you don't," said Madison. "You just yell straightaway. So does Mum. And what about that time Mum threw that pizza box at you?"
Oh my, they'd been setting fine examples for their children.
Alice cleared her throat. "Well, the thing is--"
"Are you going to come home, please, Dad?" said Madison. "I think you should come home now and be Mum's husband again. I'm pretty sure then I would stop being angry. Then I would never do another bad thing in my whole entire life. I could write that in a contract for you. So that means you could, like, sue me if I was ever bad, which I would not ever be."
She looked at her father with desperate entreaty.
"Sweetheart," began Nick, his face screwed tight as if he had a toothache. Then he stopped, distracted by some sort of disturbance on the beach. There were shouts and people running. Alice could see a small crowd of people forming up on the cliff above the aquarium, pointing at something in the water.
"Humpback whales in the harbor!" a man cried at them, running along with a camera bouncing on his chest.
Nick immediately leapt to his feet, still holding his ice cream. Madison and Alice looked up at him.
"What are you waiting for?" he said, and next thing the three of them were running breathlessly along the beach, up onto the foreshore, and running around the walkway, their ice creams held precariously in front of them.
They had to run a steep set of concrete steps and Alice drew ahead, one hand holding her ice cream, the other holding up her skirt as she effortlessly leapt up the steps, two at a time.
As she reached the top, she was in time to see a massive plume of water shoot up from the water below them.
"It's a mother and her calf," said a woman to Alice. "Watch. Just there. You'll see them again."
Nick and Madison pounded up the stairs behind her. Nick was breathing heavily. (How did he get so unfit?)
"Where? Where?" said Madison. Her face was pink and anxious.
"Just watch," said Alice.
For a few seconds there was nothing but silence. The surface of the harbor rippled in the breeze and a seagull squawked plaintively.
"They've gone," said Madison. "We've missed them. Typical."
Nick looked at his watch.
Come on, whale, thought Alice. Give us a break.
The water erupted as a massive creature shot straight into the air. It was like something prehistoric had crashed through an invisible barrier into ordinary life. Alice caught a glimpse of a barnacle-encrusted white front. It seemed to hover in the air before slamming back into the water, with a flurry of icy, salty raindrops against their faces.
Madison grabbed hold of Alice's arm. Her face was radiant with joy, speckled with droplets of water. "Look, Mum! Look!"
The whale rolled luxuriously about, revealing huge curves of velvety black skin, its tail slapping the water, as if enjoying a hot bath.
"Madison, Alice, over there--it's the baby!" shouted Nick, and he sounded like a sixteen-year-old boy.
The calf was splashing about in miniature imitation of its mother. Alice could almost imagine it gurgling with laughter.
"Ha!" said Nick idiotically. "Ha!"
All around them were faces full of joy and wonder. The sea air was cool on their faces, the sun warm on their backs.
"Do it again!" said Madison. "Jump up again, mother whale!"
"Yeah!" agreed the man with the camera. "One more time."
And right on cue, she did.
Elisabeth's Homework for Jeremy Ben is threatening to ring you up. He thinks I'm behaving like a crazy person.
Frannie's Letter to Phil Something quite extraordinary has happened, Phil.
As they walked back to the picnic rug, Madison danced around them. She was euphoric. Skipping. Jumping. Swinging on Nick's hand, then Alice's, then both. People walking by smiled at her.
"That was the best thing I've ever seen!" she kept saying. "I'm going to blow that photo up into a poster and put it over my bed!"
The man with the camera had taken Nick's e-mail address and was going to send him the photo he'd taken.
"Let's hope he didn't miss it," said Nick.
"No, he got it," said Madison. "He definitely got it. Can I go paddle? Just to feel the water?"
She looked at Alice, and Alice looked at Nick. He shrugged.
"Sure," said Alice. "Why not?"
They watched her run down toward the water.
"Do you think she needs counseling?" said Alice.
"She's been through a lot," said Nick. "Gina's accident. You and me. And she always feels things so deeply."
"What do you mean, Gina's accident?" Alice thought about Madison's nightmare. Get it off her.
"Madison was with you," said Nick. "She saw it happen. You don't remember it, do you?"
"No," said Alice. "Just the feeling of it." Although that feeling of sick horror seemed impossible here today, with the sun and sea, ice creams and whales.
"There was a storm," said Nick. "A tree fell on Gina's car. You and Madison were driving behind."
A tree. So that horrible image of a black leafless tree swaying against a stormy sky was real.
"It must have been horrendous for both of you," said Nick quietly. He lifted a handful of sand and let the grains fall through his fingers. "And I didn't--I wasn't--"
"What?"
"I wasn't as supportive as I should have been," said Nick.
"Why weren't you?" asked Alice curiously.
"Honestly, I don't know," said Nick. "I just felt detached. I felt like you wouldn't want my sympathy. I felt like--I felt that if
you'd had the choice, you would have preferred that I'd died rather than Gina. I remember I tried to hug you and you pushed me away as if I made you sick. I should have tried harder. I'm sorry."
"But why would you think I'd prefer you to die?" asked Alice. It seemed such a silly, childish, wrong thing to think.
"We weren't getting on that well at the time. And you two were such good friends," said Nick. "I mean--that was great--that was fine--but ..." His lips did something funny. "You told Gina that you were pregnant with Olivia before you told me."
"Really?" Why would she have done that? "I'm sorry."
"Oh, well, it was only a small thing." He stopped. "Also, once I overheard you saying something about our sex life. Or lack thereof. I mean, I know women always talk about sex together. It was just the tone in your voice. It was such contempt for me. And then, when she and Mike broke up, and you were going out to bars with her, trying to help her pick up men, I got the feeling that you were jealous. You wanted to be a single woman with her. I was in the way. Cramping your style."
"I'm so sorry," said Alice. She felt like some other woman had been horrible to Nick. As if he were describing an awful ex-girlfriend who had broken his heart.
"And then Gina died. And that was it. You froze up. That's how it felt. You were like ice."
"I don't understand why I did that," said Alice. If Sophie had died, she would have cried for hours in the safe, comforting circle of Nick's arms.
"Is that why you didn't come to the funeral?" she asked.
Nick shrugged.
"I had to be in New York. It was a huge meeting. Something we'd been planning for months, but I told you a million bloody times I was happy to cancel. I kept asking if you wanted me at the funeral, and you said, 'Do what you want.' So, I thought, maybe you'd actually prefer it if I wasn't there. I wanted to go. She was my friend, too, once upon a time. You always seem to forget that. She drove me crazy the way she bossed you around, but I still cared about her. It just got so confusing after she and Mike split up. I wanted to stay friends with him, too, and you saw that as a betrayal of Gina. So did she. She was so mad with me. Each time I saw Gina, she'd say, 'Seen Mike lately?' and you'd both be shooting me evil looks as if I was the villain. I didn't see why I had to dump a good mate just because of one drunken--anyway, we've been over it a million times. I'm just trying to say that I felt so, I don't know, awkward, when she died. I didn't know how I was meant to act. I just wanted you to say, 'Of course you should cancel the trip. Of course you should come to the funeral.' I felt like I needed your permission."