Alice Bliss

by Laura Harrington

  “Henry?”

  “What, Mom?” he says without looking up from his food.

  “Henry—?”

  He looks up, startled by her tone. Mrs. Grover tilts her head, looking at her son. Alice watches as Henry meets his mother’s eyes and in the next instant blushes so furiously he has to take his glasses off and shade his face with one hand. Mrs. Grover’s glance travels from Henry to Alice, then to Gram. Gram shakes her head. Alice is biting her lip to keep from laughing.

  “You’re too young! Do you hear me, Alice?” Gram says.

  “Yes, Gram, I hear you,” Alice manages to say quietly, looking down at her lap.

  She hopes this looks like remorse rather than an attempt to contain hysterical laughter.

  “It’s all about trust, Henry,” Mrs. Grover says.

  “I know, Mom.”

  “Trust you earn every day.”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  Henry’s head is bending lower and lower over his plate.

  “We didn’t . . .” Alice begins.

  “Good!” Gram finishes for her.

  “You’re too young!” Mrs. Grover adds, picking up on Gram’s perennial theme.

  “Can we go now?” Henry asks.

  “Go where?”

  “Just for a walk,” Alice says in her most innocent voice, like, remember how we were in diapers together?

  Miraculously, they let them go. Everyone is so distracted and overwhelmed and exhausted, eating and drinking too much, or not at all, relieved that Henry and Alice and the car are safe and sound, that they return to their conversations and refill their glasses, as Henry and Alice walk out the kitchen door and head off through the backyards.

  Gram and Mrs. Grover watch them go and even though Henry and Alice are very careful not to touch each other, Gram and Mrs. Grover can see in their bodies, the way they yearn and turn toward each other, that something has happened. Mrs. Grover sits down suddenly in one of the kitchen chairs, a dishtowel in one hand, a serving platter in the other, feeling an overwhelming urge to cry. Gram sits down beside her and takes her hand.

  “He’s loved her all his life,” Mrs. Grover manages to say.

  They ponder this a moment as Henry and Alice pass out of sight into the deepening twilight.

  “Maybe that’s a good thing,” Gram says.

  May 31st

  The Memorial Day parade passes right by their house, as it always does. Uncle Eddie is driving the newest Miss Belknap in a bright yellow Corvette like he does every year. Different car, different Miss Belknap, same old Uncle Eddie. But Uncle Eddie looks a little different, too, Alice notices, a little uncomfortable, or distracted, like his heart’s not really in it. Maybe this is the last year for a lot of things.

  Alice and Henry have set up chairs on the sidewalk. Ellie, Angie, and Gram are marching with the local Veteran’s Association. This year the Greater Belknap VA invited all the families of men and women serving in Iraq to join them in the parade.

  Alice and Ellie made Angie a sign to carry:MATT BLISS

  1968–2006

  New York National Guard

  42nd Infantry, Iraq

  Alice joins Henry, bringing lemonade, though she refuses to sit down. It is too soon to be out here, too soon to rejoin their friends and neighbors like this. Alice still feels raw, as though her emotions are constantly on the verge of being out of control. Some days she can pretend to be normal, some days she can’t; so she stays on her feet, ready to clear out if necessary.

  She has been drawn to the curb almost against her will, to hear the school bands and see the old soldiers and the young soldiers, to see the policemen in cruisers and on horseback, to see the teams marching, and the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts. She is not with her team; in fact, she is off the team. She has promised B.D. that she will run all summer and rejoin them for cross country in the fall. Right now, though, Alice still can’t predict what she can and can’t do each day. She is only now beginning to think that she could ever go back to school.

  She waves at Mrs. Minty across the street and down a ways, and Mrs. Piantowski, a bit farther down, surrounded by her children. And there’s John Kimball and his father and his brother, Joey; and Stephie, with her mom and dad.

  Here comes the Folding Lawn Chair Brigade. Their annual comic routine of synchronized and choreographed moves with lawn chairs and music is always a big hit. This is Ellie and Henry’s favorite part of the parade. Next are the politicians in convertibles, the fire trucks, and the high school band.

  The World War II vets and the Korean War vets, in their faded uniforms, their numbers dwindling each year, follow the band, walking a bit slowly, some with pinned up sleeves, some with canes. Next come the Vietnam vets wearing bits and pieces of jungle fatigues, some with ponytails, or bald, with pot bellies or green berets. And finally, bringing up the rear, the Iraq veteran’s group in their desert fatigues. People fall silent as they pass. You can hear the hush rolling up the street, the same way you could hear the bands approaching. It’s eerie to hear the crowds go quiet.

  As they get closer Alice can see that Mrs. Grover is walking with Ellie and Gram. Ellie walks between them, holding their hands. And there’s Angie with her sign. Mrs. Piantowski steps off the curb to join them, and so does Mrs. Minty, who is carrying a homemade flag over her shoulder that reads PEACE.

  Alice surprises herself and walks into the street to join her mother. As if this is what she had planned all along, though in all of the confusion she has been feeling, this is the one thing she was sure she would not do. But here is her mother, carrying a sign with the name of her husband on it, her husband and the father of her children.

  There are two other young widows carrying their husband’s names, and a few other Iraq vets and their families. There’s a young man in a wheelchair, missing both legs, another on crutches, another with part of his jaw gone. A smaller group of men and women march under the banner: Veterans Against the War.

  At first Alice just walks beside Angie. Henry joins his mother, and he and Mrs. Grover walk right behind them. Alice links arms with her mother, and finally, Angie hands her the sign. Alice carries her father’s name; she holds it high. Angie rests her hand on the small of Alice’s back, and Alice thinks of Matt and the roof and his voice in her ear telling her: You can do it, Alice. She carries her father’s name through the streets of her town, past the houses and yards and faces of her neighbors.

  She can hear the band playing up ahead of them. She looks back to get a glimpse of Henry and can see that more and more people have joined them. Not a movement, exactly, but a dozen more people publicly standing with the veterans and their families.

  Angie leans over to whisper in Alice’s ear before she puts her arm around her waist and draws her close. They walk in unison, more together than they have been in months, possibly years, until Alice hands Angie the sign and peels off from the group and sprints the few blocks home.

  She walks through the house. Past the six black boxes that arrived a week ago and that none of them can bear to unpack. Each pair of socks, each T-shirt, each letter, each photograph is inventoried on twenty sheets of paper. Everything has been washed, so when you breathe in the scent of a shirt, it doesn’t smell like him. Only his pillow, Alice has found, has any trace of his scent. Maybe they don’t know how to wash feather pillows.

  It’s strange but there is really nothing left of her father in these boxes, in these sheets and towels and uniforms. These things are not Matt, they are just things.

  She heads out to the garden and sets to work picking baby green beans, peas, radishes, greens. The gourds are going crazy, the tendrils of their vines fanning out across the low fence Alice and Matt built last year. Looks like it’s going to be a bumper crop come fall.

  It’s quiet in the garden aside from the buzz of insects and the occasional birdsong. She stops for a moment to really listen: she can hear cars on Belknap Road and poplar leaves stirring like soft coins in the breeze. She closes her eyes and listens
again. The moments when she hears her father’s voice in her head are less and less frequent as each day passes. Alice wonders if his voice has gone silent and if this silence will last for the rest of her life.

  She heads for the workshop, leaving her basket of produce in the shade. Inside, she stands for a moment, trying to find him. She runs her hands over the workbench, feeling the nicks and dings in the old wood. She trails her fingers over the tools hung along the wall and opens his tool chest, touching everything inside.

  She stands looking at the box of letters stored up in the rafters. She desperately wants to read every single one and just as desperately wants to wait as long as possible to read the first sentence. She can feel the promise of his voice in those letters and she also feels a terrible foreboding that reading them will be the end of something; that reading them now, too soon, will diminish the power she is sure they hold.

  Finally, she climbs up to get them. She grabs a folding chair and sits quietly for a long time. Her father is trapped inside boxes everywhere right now, except here in his workshop and in the house, in his closet. How soon before her mother cleans out the closet and gives away his clothes? How soon until Angie wants to turn the workshop back into a garage? Maybe Alice is going to have to learn how to use all of these power tools, learn how to make things and repair things, to justify keeping this workshop just the way it is. Who can teach her, she wonders? Maybe she could work with a carpenter this summer, like an apprentice, like being on the roof with her dad. And in that thought, she thinks, there is the echo of Matt’s voice.

  She lifts off the top of the box, flips through the letters. The big events he wrote about haven’t happened yet, graduations and a wedding and losing her mother. So she looks through the series of letters with the heading, “the little moments that make up the big moments that might get forgotten.” The first one, “the moment you realize you want this boy to kiss you” seems just right. She opens it and begins to read:

  Dear Alice,

  Okay, you’re not going to need my help with this one. Lots of boys are going to want to kiss you. Trust me on this. Obviously, you’ll figure out who you want to kiss and who you don’t want to kiss. But when a boy is kissing you, maybe for the first time, maybe not, other things start to happen. I don’t think I have to be too graphic here.

  Just remember, he can’t help it.

  Love,

  Dad

  Alice laughs. Her father is writing to her about kissing and also more than kissing and he’s funny; she forgot how funny he is. Maybe one of these letters includes his manual on farting and all the special names he has for different kinds of farts: frips and gribbles and spilbers.

  He’s funny, she remembers with relief. He was funny and full of life and loved to work hard and get dirty and eat ice cream and play baseball and play with his kids. She remembers his patience those spring twilights playing catch with her and with Henry, the endless pitches to Henry for batting practice, his patience with her in the garden, in the workshop, his delight in teaching her things. Did she really like to garden or did she like to elicit that delight in her father? Does it matter? He was so easy to please. Stand up straight, tell the truth, do your best.

  She sees a letter she doesn’t remember noticing before: “Dad’s words to live by,” and opens it right up. Just exactly what she was thinking about.

  Dear Alice,

  Cogitate on this list when you’re in the mood, but not too much and not too often. You know all of this already; these are just little reminders. These are probably the things that my father or my mother said to me; there’s nothing original here. But most if not all of these ideas have stood the test of time.

  In his perfect block printing, here it is, his list:Cultivate gratitude.

  Think for yourself.

  Treat all people equally.

  Respect your body.

  Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

  Ask for help when you need it.

  Be your own best friend.

  Don’t be afraid to fail.

  Do one thing at a time.

  Learn how to dance.

  Write thank-you notes.

  Good manners never go out of style.

  Treat your family and your friends like gold.

  Give more than you receive.

  Aim high.

  If she closes her eyes, she can hear him, in each of these words and phrases, she can hear him.

  June 19th

  School has ended. Alice kept up with classes, more or less, from home. The readings and assignments for English were no big deal, and her English teacher, Mrs. Cole, even came by the house twice to talk to her about themes and possible essay questions for the final. Henry helped with history, and her mom hired a tutor for math and science, this incredibly shy eleventh grader named Kimmie. They stretched the rules and let her log her running miles for gym credit, and chorus is just pass/fail anyway. When it came to exam time, Gram sat with her in the kitchen every afternoon for a week as she took her finals, one by one.

  The day after graduation, John Kimball drove over to say good-bye. He was leaving for basic training later that day.

  Angie, who had never really met John before, or couldn’t remember meeting him at the funeral, fights back sudden tears when Alice introduces them. She holds on to his hand for a long moment, just looking at him.

  “Be careful, okay?” she says, before releasing his hand.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  When Alice walks him to his car he surprises her and takes her hand, pulling her into a hug.

  “I’ve had really bad timing with you. Maybe one day you’ll give me another chance.”

  Alice steps away, looks at him. She knows, now, that you can’t send a boy into the unknown with nothing to hold on to.

  “Maybe you’ll visit when you’re home on leave.”

  “That could be a year.”

  “I know. I’ll still be in high school, remember?”

  He laughs.

  “Getting less interesting to you with each passing day, probably,” she laughs back at him.

  “You could write to me.”

  “About what? Trigonometry? Homeroom? Track practice?”

  “That wouldn’t be so bad. Everybody says letters, real letters . . .”

  “That’s just like my dad: ‘You can’t carry an e-mail in your pocket.’ ”

  He hands her a piece of paper with his address.

  “I’m not expecting . . . ,” he says.

  “I know.”

  He looks at his hands.

  “You know I want to kiss you.”

  “Are you asking permission?”

  “Well, after last time . . .”

  “I don’t . . .” She hesitates, looking at him, and realizes she’s memorizing him.

  “What?”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” she manages.

  He reaches out and touches her face, his palm against her cheek, his thumb pressed against her lips.

  “That’s okay.”

  Knowing that her mother is watching, and Ellie, too, for that matter, and possibly Henry down the street, she stands on tiptoe to kiss him, surprising both of them. It’s a quick kiss, a child’s kiss thrown into the heart of this boy, not a promise, not a pledge, maybe just hope or a prayer.

  “I’ll write to you,” he says, before he ducks into his car and drives away.

  There are signs of life everywhere. The garden is thriving, the grass in the yard is growing like crazy; Alice has already had to cut it three times. They are eating peas and radishes and lettuce from the garden almost every night. Alice has planted the warm-weather crops: tomatoes and basil, and the marigolds and zinnias are already budded out. Matt would be proud.

  Uncle Eddie has taught Alice how to rotate tires and inspect brakes and brake pads, and the two of them, with Henry’s help, have installed the pair of horizontal windows in the west wall of the workshop. Alice can see the sunsets now, just like Matt always
wanted.

  During another driving lesson, which took a lot of wheedling on Alice’s part after the incident with the Mercedes, Alice enlisted Uncle Eddie’s help with her plan to go to Small Point. First she begged to be allowed to take the car on her own, with Henry along as a sort of safety guarantee, of course, but Uncle Eddie wouldn’t buy it. He reminded her that she can’t get her license until she turns sixteen in October, and there’s no way in hell he’d authorize an out-of-state trip without a license. Then he convinced her to take her family along, that she might actually need them on this trip.

  In preparation, Henry and Alice and Ellie have spent hours and hours in the workshop together, making small boats out of scraps of wood. Henry and Alice had long discussions about design, arguing back and forth about flat bottoms versus keels, et cetera. They made paper, then cardboard boats, planning to implement the best designs in wood. But they ended up just winging it and making boats with the pieces of wood that they have, with glue guns and staple guns and the occasional nail. Ellie was the inspiration. She didn’t need discussions or prototypes; she just picked out pieces of wood and started to put them together. Her boat is finished and painted and it even has a sail. And a name, of course: Bibliobibuli, one who reads too much.

  Ellie has also made a mini dictionary of long words. She cut and stapled the pages and then copied out all of her favorites. She does not yet have a superlong word for every single letter of the alphabet, but almost.

  “Guess what?” Ellie says one afternoon in the workshop.

  “What?”

  “I want to be a neologist when I grow up.”

  “What’s that?” Henry asks.

  “Someone who makes up new words.”

  “Perfect.”