Alice Bliss

  Matt labels the plan with the date and tacks it up on the wall.

  “You can rototill mid-April if the ground isn’t too wet and heavy. You can call Jimmy Rose to do it; or ask Uncle Eddie to help you.”

  “Got it.”

  “You might have to pester Jimmy. He gets busy.”

  Matt looks out the window at the snow covering the garden.

  “And I want you to help your mom.”

  “I know.”

  “No, Alice. Really help her. Like you’re her partner. I want you to help her take care of Ellie and the house and . . . She’s gonna need you.”

  “Okay. But tell her to remember to ask me.”

  “What?”

  “She acts like I’m supposed to know everything she wants and when I don’t she gets mad. If she’d just tell me. Or ask me—”

  “You tell her.”

  “She doesn’t listen to me.”

  “Keep trying.”

  Alice looks at her feet.

  “Honey? Keep trying.”

  “Okay.”

  “You know where all my papers are.”

  “Dad! We’ve been over this!”

  She doesn’t want to hear about his will and his life insurance again. She doesn’t even want those papers to exist.

  “I opened up an account for you.” He reaches into his back pocket and holds out a bankbook from the local bank. “It’s just a basic savings account. But I put five hundred dollars in there for you. In case you need something.”

  “Dad, it’s okay.”

  “Or there’s an emergency.”

  She’s backing away from him. She doesn’t want to touch the bankbook.

  “Or your mom can’t handle things for a few days.”

  “Dad!”

  “Alice, there are things you need to know.”

  She trips backing away from him and sits down, hard, on her butt. Which is funny. In an awful sort of stupid, annoying way.

  He reaches out to help her up and pulls her into a hug. It’s a real hug, the kind of hug he used to give her before she started turning into a teenager and growing breasts and getting sweaty and unsure. He holds her for a long time. She breathes him in. Sawdust. Wood smoke. Cold coffee. Aftershave. Linseed oil. Dad.

  Matt is trying to stay right here with Alice; he is trying not to let his mind run off with all the what ifs that have been keeping him awake at night. He’s wishing his parents were still alive. His mom would know how to pick up the slack, or how to step in if Angie and Alice really can’t get along. And his dad . . . his dad would plant the garden with Alice, and take her to baseball games and . . .

  “I need to show you something.”

  “Not your will again.”

  “Come over here.”

  He leads her to the big wooden tool chest. He pulls out the first three levels of tools, then opens a drawer and slides that out completely. Underneath the socket wrenches there’s a plain white envelope with her name on it. He opens the envelope and fans five one hundred dollar bills.

  “What’s that for?”

  “It’s there if you need it. And in the envelope there are some important numbers. The VA so you can get benefits, my lawyer, my life insurance . . .”

  “Dad! You’re talking like you’re not coming back.”

  “No, no, no.” He grins at her, and his whole face lights up. “This is like carrying an umbrella in case it rains, and then it doesn’t rain, so . . .”

  “What?”

  “It’s just insurance. It’s just an umbrella. You can’t take it too seriously.”

  She wants to believe him.

  “And together, right now, I want the two of us to make a list of who you can call if you need help.”

  She’s looking at the floor and she’s thinking, no list, no cash, no strategies. Can he just back out, refuse to go, change his mind? Could they move to Canada? Or Mexico? Could they just get into the car and go? Or could she get violently sick right this minute or have some awful but minor accident that would keep him from leaving?

  “C’mon. A list.”

  “Define help.”

  “Shoveling the driveway, jumpstarting the car, advice on a repair, moral support, somebody to take you to the movies or the library or out for ice cream.”

  So they agree on Gram and Uncle Eddie and Henry and his parents and her favorite teacher, Mrs. Cole, and Mrs. Minty, who lives down the road, in a pinch, and her parents’ friends the Hoyts, from the old neighborhood, and her dad’s baseball buddy Bobby Lester. She adds Mrs. Piantowski, the lady who bakes bread for Gram’s restaurant, at the last minute.

  Her dad writes all these names down in his perfect block printing and adds the phone numbers from memory or the phone book. And then he adds the family doctor, dentist, banker, and insurance man.

  He writes up a second copy to put in the house and tacks the original to the inside lid of his toolbox. He pulls the only chair over to the woodstove next to Alice’s crate and opens the door to the stove so they can watch the fire burn. He picks up the muffin and hands a piece to Alice before sitting down and stretching his feet out to the fire. They sit like that, not talking, for what seems like a long time.

  Outside the back window Alice can see the outlines of the garden, some of the furrows visible under the snow, stretching away in long thin rows. She can’t imagine doing the garden without her dad. It’s his thing; she’s always thought of herself as his assistant at best. She can’t imagine doing anything without her dad and she starts to feel like she can’t breathe. And then she looks at him. Just looks at him as he watches the fire with muffin crumbs on his lap.

  “I’ll write to you.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  “Every day.”

  “Good.”

  She takes a breath.

  “Dad . . .”

  He closes up the woodstove.

  “We need to go in, I think.”

  Not yet, Alice thinks, not yet.

  “I wish . . .”

  “Me, too, sweetheart. Me, too.”

  February 1st

  Matt is getting on a bus headed to Fort Dix, New Jersey. That’s not so bad. Nothing to worry about, really. It’s just a bus. It’s just New Jersey. And if anybody actually gets to know Matt Bliss on base it’s absolutely a foregone conclusion that they will find him so useful, so essential to the running of, well, everything, that his superior officers will choose to keep him stateside. And safe. And alive. Until they send him home. On his own two feet. Much sooner than expected. This is what keeps running through Alice’s mind as they go through the motions of saying good-bye.

  Henry wanted to come with them, but that idea got nixed. So he and his parents stood out on their front steps to wave at them as they drove along East Oak Street. Henry was waving his baseball mitt over his head, which got a laugh out of Matt. Matt slowed the car way down and cranked his window to wave back before he blasted the horn and sped away.

  Now they’re standing with the other reservists and their wives and families at the Rochester Greyhound station. The men are in fatigues, the wives are in jeans or stretchy pants, the kids are wearing dirty parkas and have pink cheeks and runny noses from the cold. It’s not romantic like all those classic movie scenes of parting at train stations; it’s more like being stuck at the mall with a lot of strangers. There’s no brass band, no sound track at all, just the tinny annoying bus terminal Muzak and the muffled announcements. There are also no wonderful hats, or handkerchiefs, or stockings with seams. No one is dressed up at all, except Angie, who is wearing high heels, a skirt and a blouse, her dress coat and her favorite silk scarf, the one that Matt gave her. She is not, Alice notices, wearing her glasses. She never wears her glasses when she gets dressed up, which Alice thinks is just plain stupid, because then she can’t see anything much past the middle distance. But once Angie gets started with the silk and the perfume and the high heels, the glasses get left behind.

  Alice is watching her mom and her dad
and holding on to her dad’s other hand until Ellie worms her way in and pushes her out of the way. Then she hangs back feeling forgotten.

  She wishes she knew what to say, but every phrase that pops into her head sounds stupid or childish. And Matt’s not one for big gestures or big speeches, and he’s definitely not one for spilling his guts at the Greyhound station surrounded by strangers.

  Last night Matt gave Alice a map of the Middle East. They put it up on her wall together and put pins in where he’s supposed to be going. Not that anybody knows for sure. Alice wonders how anybody can get things done when nobody knows anything for sure.

  And then he’s walking away from them, his duffel slung over his shoulder, his too-short hair bristling out the back of his cap. The backs of their necks, she thinks—the skinny, tense ones and the ones with rolls of fat—they look like kids, like boys, really.

  She sprints out of the waiting group and catches up with her dad.

  “Dad . . . Dad—”

  He stops and lifts her off the ground in a hug. When he sets her down, he slips his watch off his wrist and puts it into her hand. She’s working as hard as she can not to cry. It suddenly seems so important to see him, really see him. He turns away and the wind picks up and the grit of the parking lot blows into their eyes, and Alice thinks desert and Alice thinks land mines and Alice thinks will she ever see her dad, this dad, the way he is right now, full of this life, again?

  She stands there watching until every last one of them is on board and the bus begins to back out of its bay.

  She turns around to see that some of the families are waving little flags, like the ones you get for the Memorial Day parade. It begins to snow, the heavy, quiet snow that blankets the world in stillness and makes the road surfaces treacherous within minutes.

  Angie waves her scarf as the bus drives away. She stands there too long, long after the bus is out of sight, long after the other families have piled into their cars and left. She blows her nose and finally crosses the parking lot to join Ellie and Alice at the car.

  “Could you unlock the car please?” Alice asks, shivering.

  Angie gives Alice a long, unreadable look.

  “It’s cold, Mom.”

  For once Alice and Ellie do not fight about who gets to sit in the front. The three of them get into the car and it’s way too quiet. Angie pulls the seat forward so she can reach the pedals and reaches up to adjust the rearview mirror. Ellie has brought her recorder along and thinks that now might be a good moment to practice.

  “Not now, Ellie.”

  “But Mom—”

  “Not now!”

  Angie backs up and turns and when she reaches the street she doesn’t seem to know which way to go. These hesitations are so unlike her mother, Alice thinks.

  Driving down Monroe Avenue, Angie pulls her silk scarf off, rolls down her window, and holds the scarf outside, billowing and snapping in the wind.

  “Mom—?”

  When Angie lets the scarf go, Alice turns in her seat to watch it float away before it drifts to the snow-covered ground. The car behind them runs over it.

  “What did you do that for?”

  “I love that scarf! You could have given it to me,” Ellie chimes in.

  Angie just keeps driving.

  “Mom! It’s cold back here! Close the window!”

  “I think . . .” Angie begins and then trails off.

  “Mom!” Alice says. “The window!”

  “Who wants frozen custard?” Angie asks.

  “In this weather? Are you crazy?”

  “I do! I do!” Ellie shouts.

  Angie makes a sudden U turn, throwing Alice against the door. Alice feels a jolt in the pit of her stomach. The car fishtails in the snow as she tries to grab the door handle.

  “Mom! What are you doing?!”

  “Can I get jimmies?” Ellie wants to know. “Extra jimmies? A cup full of jimmies?”

  Alice is looking at Angie. She is driving way too fast. Angie never drives too fast. And, Alice registers again, she is not wearing her glasses.

  “Mom, do you want me to drive?”

  “You don’t know how to drive.”

  “I think you need to pull over.”

  “Why?”

  “You need your glasses.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re driving really fast and you’re scaring me.”

  “And it’s freezing in here!” Ellie adds. “Close the window!”

  Angie turns to look at Alice.

  “We’re going to Don and Bob’s. We’re getting frozen custard. Then we’re going home.”

  “Okay. Okay. Would you just keep your eyes on the road?”

  “I sure could use a scarf back here where it’s as cold as the arctic tundra!” Ellie says.

  Alice wishes she could laugh.

  “Is anybody listening to me? I’m probably catching a terrible cold right this minute. Mom! Earth to Mom! Come in, Mom!”

  Angie manages a smile.

  “Your window!?”

  Angie rolls up her window and turns the heat up high.

  “Can I have hot chocolate with my ice cream?” Ellie wants to know.

  “You can have whatever you want,” Angie answers.

  “Onion rings?”

  “At the same time?” Alice makes a face.

  “No. Onion rings and a vanilla shake. Then hot chocolate. Then ice cream.”

  “You’re gonna be sick.”

  “Mom said whatever I want.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “I don’t care. That’s what I want.”

  They pull into Don and Bob’s, and Angie nearly clips the SUV at the entrance as their car slides a bit on the snow. She gives the fat guy in the front seat a jaunty wave, like we’re all in this crazy weather thing together, aren’t we?

  Crossing the parking lot, Angie is tiptoeing through the snow trying not to ruin her new heels. She slips and grabs on to Alice to steady herself.

  “Wrong shoes,” she shrugs.

  “Yeah,” Alice concedes.

  “I was trying to look pretty.”

  “Yeah.”

  “For Dad.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He likes heels. He likes a woman in heels.”

  “That’s about all I want to know about that, Mom.”

  Ellie has run ahead and grabbed a booth. She’s already chatting up the waitress as she shakes the snow from her shoulders and takes off her coat. Alice slides in beside her and picks up the menu.

  “I’m ready!” Ellie announces to no one in particular.

  “Give me a minute.”

  “You know what you’re going to have. It’s what you always, always have.”

  “I like to look. Just in case.”

  “Just in case what? You turn into another person?”

  “Just in case it’s a grilled Reuben kind of day.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stick to the tried and true.”

  “That could be boring.”

  “You’re already boring, Alice.”

  “Thanks a lot!”

  Alice looks up to see that Angie has her head resting against the back of the booth and her eyes closed. Her long, fine fingers are crossed over her stomach. She looks pale and tired in the fluorescent light. She’s sitting in the middle of the booth as if she can cover up Dad’s absence. Alice checks to see if Ellie has noticed any of this.

  “Can we order, already?” Ellie asks.

  “Yup.”

  Ellie waves to the waitress, who comes right over. Her name tag says “Marge.” Her glasses are incredibly thick and her hair looks like it’s been teased and shellacked with hair spray. Who wears their hair like that anymore?

  “Hi, Marge!” Ellie says. “Can I get started with onion rings and a vanilla shake?”

  “You bet.”

  “I’ll have the classic burger and a root beer, please. Mom? What do you want?”

  Angie opens her eyes and sits up. Alice holds o
ut a menu, Angie ignores it.

  “Do you have soup?”

  “Beef barley or chicken vegetable.”

  “Chicken, please. A cup.”

  Marge heads off to shout their order to the cooks behind the counter.

  “We could play hangman,” Ellie says.

  “Okay.”

  “Mom, you got a pen?” Ellie asks.

  Angie finds a pen in her purse, and Alice fishes her carefully folded geometry homework out of her back pocket. Ellie, Little Miss Genius, instantly takes the pen and thinks up a nine-letter word, drawing the short lines carefully

  “Nine letters?”

  “You’re never gonna get this one.”

  “E.”

  Ellie fills in two blanks.

  “A.”

  Two more blanks.

  “Where did you get that?” Angie’s voice is maybe a little sharper than she intended. To Alice it’s coming at her with enough force to induce whiplash.

  “My homework?”

  “No. Daddy’s watch.”

  “What? Do you think I took it?”

  “I’m just asking.”

  “No, Mom, you’re accusing.”

  “I am not!”

  “Or insinuating.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

  “He gave it to me.”

  “Why didn’t he give it to me?” Ellie wants to know.

  “He gave it to you,” Angie says, her voice flat and disbelieving.

  “Why don’t you believe me?”

  “He didn’t say anything to me about it.”

  “Why would he? It’s not your watch.”

  “Let’s just drop it.”

  “Do you want the watch, Mom?”

  “No.”

  “Why does Alice always get the good stuff?” Ellie asks.

  “Shut up, Ellie.”

  Which is when, thank you Marge in the Coke-bottle glasses and the Elvis Presley updo, the food arrives.

  February 5th

  Gram, a.k.a. Penelope Pearl Bird, or Penny to her many friends, owns the last remaining café in Belknap. When Grampa died six years ago, Gram sold her house out on Plank Road, bought one of the old Victorians at the Four Corners, moved into the apartment upstairs, and resurrected Belknap’s one and only coffee shop. She roped her sister Charlotte, who was also recently widowed, into helping her. They call it The Bird Sisters and are open for breakfast and lunch, six a.m. to two p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.