Alice Bliss

by Laura Harrington

  Ellie gets up and heads for the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m not going to help you leave me.”

  “Ellie—Ellie—! Wait—!”

  Which is when Mom drives up from work and Alice thinks, oh, no, here we go, this is all going to fall apart. What a mess. Of course Ellie tells her all about it; Alice can see her making her case right there in the driveway. And then, yup, here comes Mom. Alice braces herself for a shouting match, but Angie steps into the workshop, looks around, and in a normal tone of voice, says:

  “I don’t really want you sleeping out here.”

  “But, Mom . . .”

  “And no boys, Alice.”

  “Mom!”

  “The deal is, you keep your grades up . . .”

  “The whole point of this—”

  “Is what, exactly?”

  “You know what, Mom.”

  “No, I don’t, Alice.”

  “The whole point is . . .”

  Angie waits.

  “I feel like I can . . .” Alice begins.

  “What?”

  “Hold on to him here.”

  “That’s . . .”

  “Or that I can still find him here.”

  “Oh, honey,” Angie softens.

  “Do you know what I mean?” Alice pulls Matt’s jacket closer around her.

  “Yes. I think I do.”

  “I want it to be perfect when he gets home. I got a book out of the library so I can learn how to clean and oil all his power tools. I mean, I know it’s already totally organized, but I thought . . .”

  Angie looks at Alice: Her cheeks are flushed and the tip of her nose is bright red. She is swamped in Matt’s jacket, it nearly reaches her knees. She looks like a kid again, a little kid.

  Angie wishes she could reach out and touch Alice, but with just that thought, just that impulse, she can feel Alice pulling away.

  “I didn’t think about Ellie. I should have thought about Ellie, but—”

  “She needs you.”

  “I know.”

  “More than ever.”

  “What about what I need, Mom?”

  “We’ll work it out, okay?”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “Have a little faith.”

  “I just want—”

  “She’ll be at Janna’s, there will be sleepovers, there’s a week of Nature’s Classroom coming up in May.”

  Alice crosses to her dad’s workbench.

  “You’re not mad that I brought some pictures out here?”

  “I’m not mad.”

  “I want to light a candle for every day he’s missing.”

  “Good idea with the jelly jars.”

  “Yeah. I don’t want to burn the place down or anything.”

  Angie looks around the workshop again: the clean floor, the sparkling windows, Matt’s orderliness echoed in Alice’s neat stack of books, clothes hung on pegs, the wood basket, the kindling.

  “You cleaned up in here. It looks nice.”

  “You know how Daddy had plans to put those windows in the west wall? I’m gonna figure out how to do that before he gets back. I’ll ask Uncle Eddie to help me.”

  “Matt was so excited the day he found those windows.”

  “It’ll open things up. More light.”

  “And a view of his apple trees.”

  Angie reaches out and straightens Alice’s collar.

  “You’re wearing his jacket.”

  “It was cold. I—”

  “It’s okay, Alice.”

  Angie sits down in the lawn chair near the woodstove. Alice stands nearby, uncertain what to do or say.

  “Can I have it?” Angie asks.

  “What?”

  “The jacket. Just for a bit.”

  Alice unbuttons the jacket, hands it to her mom. Angie hugs it to her, inhaling its scent.

  “Mom . . .?”

  “Throw another log on the fire, would you?”

  The fire is blazing, but Alice adds another log anyway.

  “Can you open the doors so I can watch it?”

  Alice opens the doors of the woodstove, props up the temporary screen.

  “That’s what Dad likes to do.”

  She hears her mom take in a quick breath.

  “I’d like to stay out here for a little while by myself, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  Alice starts backing toward the door.

  “I’ll be in soon.”

  Alice hesitates.

  “Don’t forget to close up the stove, Mom.”

  “I won’t.”

  Alice closes the door behind her and wishes she could look through the door to see her mom. Maybe she could replace the solid wood door with a glass one or put windows in on the sides. She’s thinking about windows because it is frankly too strange to think about her mom in her dad’s space like this, in her space, everything turned upside down, Alice outside in the chill wind, her mom by the fire. How did this happen?

  But as of right now, right this instant, Alice has a new plan. She has decided to only think positive thoughts, to stop dwelling on all the terrifying what ifs that haunt her. She will keep those thoughts to herself and instead prepare for her dad’s return. His certain return. She will be the one to believe in him, believe in his strength and his ingenuity, his ability to talk to, to persuade anyone about anything, anywhere, anytime. She thinks about the way he can coach you so you don’t even realize he’s doing it, whether it’s how to throw a better pitch or how to strike a cleaner, stronger hammer blow.

  When he comes home, if he’s still recovering from his wounds, or so badly hurt that it will take months to recover, then she will be the one to do things for him. She’ll drive him to the doctor’s because she’ll have her permit by then. When he’s ready to go back to work she’ll be his assistant, handling the things he’s not quite ready for, or the things that are too tough by the end of the day when he gets tired. She’ll fill his Thermos and pack his lunch. She’ll load the tool chest and the truck. She knows how to do these things, she’s been watching him and getting in the way her whole life.

  It occurs to her that if, no, when, they find him, they’ll probably send him home as soon as they can debrief him and stabilize him at the hospital. So the garden has to be perfect. There will not be a weed anywhere, the successive plantings of red and green lettuce will be beautiful, the corn will be knee high, the tomatoes will be staked; she will pick and make him his favorite chopped salad every night. Beets. She should plant some beets.

  And if he’s too tired to talk about what happened, she promises herself she’ll wait until he’s ready to tell her the story, the true story that she can hold on to instead of the horror story she plays in her head every night.

  Will she tell him about Henry? There’s nothing to tell. Or John Kimball? Really nothing to tell. Or Stephie or what it was like to feel so alone the whole time he was gone, the way nobody knew how to talk to her, or how to talk about the war or her father, and it seemed like people just wanted to avoid her. The part about not getting along that great with Mom she can keep secret. Running, she can tell him about running, and B.D. and the way he’s fair with everybody, just the way Matt is, and Ginger and her long legs, and how it’s looking like Alice might really be a long-distance runner, might have some actual talent in that department. Can she tell him about the miles and miles she runs in practice and learning to believe you’ve got something left for the end of the race, that believing it is just as important as running it? Will it still be okay to run like that if Matt’s legs have been shattered? If only she knew where he’d been wounded, but she’s promised herself not to think about that. Just think about him getting out and getting home and being here and being Dad, that’s all, just being Dad.

  Alice heads inside to see what she can do to start dinner only to discover that her quarterly report card has arrived. Along with a letter from Matt, addressed to Ellie.
A letter sent ten days ago. Maybe it’s a sign. Maybe it’s a good sign.

  She hesitates for a nanosecond and then rips open her report card, even though it’s not addressed to her, but to her parents. It’s bad. No, it’s really bad. Every single subject is in the low seventies, having fallen from the nineties. It’s not failing. Not yet. But it will be. Each and every teacher makes a note of missing tests and missing assignments and how this just isn’t like Alice. There’s a special blue slip requesting a conference.

  What is she going to do with this? Hide it? Put it in the trash? Hope that Angie is too distracted to notice that it never arrived?

  Once again, Alice forgot the Ellie factor, because here’s Ellie, having padded into the hall on her little stealth feet to read along right beside her.

  “You’re in trouble,” Ellie says, with a certain gleeful satisfaction. “You’re in big trouble.”

  “Want to pretend like this never arrived?”

  “Fat chance, Alice.”

  “Ellie—”

  “What are you doing in school? Aren’t you even trying?”

  “Hey, I don’t need you to—”

  “What would Daddy say?”

  “Listen—”

  “You can’t just move out of the house and let every single thing go, Alice. That’s not what Daddy would do.”

  “Okay, okay! You can just back off, Ellie!”

  Mom walks in the door and takes the report card and strangely, oddly, says nothing. Not now at least. She picks up Ellie’s letter and looks at the postmark.

  “Oh, this is so strange.”

  “Maybe it’s a good omen,” Alice says.

  “This was mailed ten days ago.”

  “There could be more on the way,” Ellie says. “Lots more.”

  Angie holds the letter against her chest for a moment and closes her eyes. A silent wish, or a prayer, Alice thinks, as Angie hands the letter to Ellie.

  Ellie rips open the envelope right there in the hallway.

  “Wait,” Alice says, an edge of panic in her voice. “Let’s do it the same way we always do.”

  So they gather on the couch, where Ellie climbs into Angie’s lap and reads her letter to herself, Angie and Alice both pretending they are not trying to read over her shoulder.

  “Read it,” Alice begs.

  Ellie pushes her glasses into place and begins:

  Dear Ellie,

  You asked me what I miss:

  You. Being near you. And Mom and Alice and Uncle Eddie and Gram.

  I miss just hanging out with you. To do anything. Or nothing. Sit on the couch. Play chess. Drop you off at school.

  I miss your drawings. I miss braiding your hair. I miss your crazy outfits. I miss tickling you. I miss that spot behind your left ear that smells like vanilla.

  I miss fresh milk. The stuff here is in little squeezable plastic containers and it always tastes sour to me.

  Gram’s coffee.

  A movie. In a theater. With popcorn!

  Libraries. Book stores.

  Your laugh.

  Walking down a quiet street at dusk with the lights on in the houses and kids doing homework or playing on the lawns. That happy noise. Spring nights when nobody wants to come inside.

  Baseball. Playing with my team, playing catch with Alice and Henry, pitching for Henry, trying to get you to play with us.

  Trees. Grass. I miss green. I miss mountains and birch trees and evergreens. Let’s go for a hike in the Adirondacks when I get home.

  My truck. To get in, turn the key, turn on the radio, find some tunes, roll down the windows and just drive. No more body armor. No more Kevlar helmet!

  Home cooked food. Hamburgers on the grill. Making sundaes with you and Alice.

  A real bathroom. A bathtub. Lots of hot water. A “combat shower” is so fast you blink and you could miss it.

  Breakfast at The Bird Sisters, lunch on a roofing job, dinner at home with my three girls.

  You. I’ll begin and end with you. I miss you, Ellie.

  Love,

  Daddy

  Ellie, of course, begins to cry as she reads the letter, and when she finishes, she curls into Angie’s arms, as though she could burrow inside of her mother, and sobs. Alice can see Angie start to lose it and then pull herself back from the edge so she can take care of Ellie.

  “Ellie,” Angie says, “Daddy’s gonna be okay. He’s missing you and loving you—and all of us—right now.”

  “You promise?” Ellie asks.

  Angie meets Alice’s glance over Ellie’s head.

  “I promise.”

  April 28th

  After practice, a long run at Mendon Pond Park, where Alice actually kept up with Ginger for the 3.5 mile course and almost caught her as she made her move up the last hill, Alice helps Uncle Eddie unload the rototiller from the really cool old Ford truck he’s driving with wooden running boards and side panels. Red, of course. Eddie muscles the rototiller through the yard, out past her dad’s workshop and up the small rise to the garden.

  “You sure you want to do all of it?”

  “Yup.”

  “It’s pretty big, Alice.”

  “That’s okay. We do corn, remember?”

  “What’s that smell?”

  “Bailey’s delivered a load of horse manure.”

  “Glad I wore my boots.”

  Uncle Eddie fires up the rototiller and takes off along the outer perimeter of the garden, chewing up and turning the soil. Alice walks behind him picking up and tossing aside any stones that get uncovered. The soil is still pretty heavy and wet, but Eddie and his machine are slicing through it like butter. Every now and then Alice misreads the angle or direction of the rototiller and bends down to grab a stone and gets a faceful or shirtful of dirt for her trouble. Even wearing boots she and Eddie are both getting soaked with water and caked with mud. Halfway through the job Alice is dirtier than she’s ever been in her life.

  Uncle Eddie’s approach is a lot faster and definitely more slapdash than her dad’s. He’s driving the rototiller, rather than carefully guiding it. He’s finding out just what this machine can do, how fast it can turn, what happens when you give it maximum gas. These experiments keep plastering both of them with dirt. Alice has to jog sometimes to keep up. Uncle Eddie’s got this thing going top speed and he’s whooping and hollering as he slides through the corners, using all his body weight to turn the rototiller, skidding on his heels, and laughing.

  This job, which Alice usually hates for its careful, dull, noisy slowness has been transformed into a road race and a mud-pie session all rolled into one. She had dreaded every plodding step as some sort of penitential slog through missing her dad. Instead, Uncle Eddie has turned this task into a game and released her by changing the unwritten rules.

  He stops before their last pass around the perimeter and hollers at her over the engine noise:

  “You want to drive it?”

  “No.”

  “You scared?”

  “No!”

  “Yes, you are!”

  “I am not!”

  “Then come on up here. We’ll do it together.”

  She takes the handles, adjusting the speed. Uncle Eddie walks beside her in case she needs a hand. She’s taking it slow, really slow, slow enough to lift her face from looking down at the dirt and take in the whole gentle swath of the garden; the earth turned up, the wet mushroom-y smell of dirt in the spring, full of loam, and promise and possibility. She can do this; she is doing this.

  Fifteen minutes later she’s helping Uncle Eddie drive the rototiller up two planks and into the bed of his truck.

  “You want to come in for a beer or something?”

  “Like this? Your mom would kill me. She’s already gonna kill you.”

  “I could bring one out to you.”

  “That’s okay, kiddo, I promised to get this baby back to the rental place before five.”

  “Thanks, Uncle Eddie.”

  “Anytime.�
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  “I wish I could get a picture of you.”

  “Wait until you see your own dirty self. We should’ve made a video. I think it could be a big hit on YouTube. In the farm states.”

  Uncle Eddie peels out and leans on the horn as Alice turns toward the house. She kicks her boots off outside and goes in the back door and directly down the basement stairs where she strips off all her clothes and throws everything into the washing machine. Every stitch is soaked, even her underwear. She grabs a towel out of the dryer and heads upstairs. Now she can see her dirty footprints on each step. And her path from the back door to the basement is muddy as well. Her big muddy handprints are all over the back door and the basement door. She can’t believe it. If it weren’t so cold outside she’d go wash down with the garden hose. Now she has to track and drip all the way up to the shower, too. Her mom is gonna kill her. She grabs paper towels and scrubs the bottom of her feet.

  She sidesteps her way up the stairs so she won’t touch the walls. She turns on the shower and steps in. The water coming off her is black with dirt, her hair is gritty; there’s even mud down her back. She leans against the wall of the shower, letting the hot water wash over her. She’s feeling better than she’s felt in days. They got the job done. She’s going to have her garden no matter what her mother says, just the way she planned it with her dad. Exactly like last year. Sunday she’ll plant peas and radishes and the earliest lettuce and spinach. Sunday she’ll be in the garden, down on her knees with stakes and string and seeds.

  “Alice!? Alice! Get down here right this minute!”

  Oh, shit, here we go, she thinks, as she steps out of the shower, slips on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and heads downstairs.

  Her mother has a bottle of Fantastik in one hand and a big pink sponge in the other. She shoves them both at Alice.

  “Here. It’s your mess. You clean it up.”

  Without a word, Alice sets to work.

  “I thought we discussed this. I thought I made myself perfectly clear.”

  No answer from Alice.

  “Why are you insisting on—?”

  “I promised Dad,” Alice mumbles into the floor.

  “What? I can’t hear you.”