Alice Bliss (6 page)

“It’s Ellie’s turn,” Angie says, taking the phone from Alice.

Alice sinks into a kitchen chair and pretends to listen to her sister chatter on about Janna and Janna’s new bunk bed with a desk built right into the side of it, and how Ellie thinks she wants to write and draw pictures for a book about a sleepover where the bunk beds are stacked ten high and go right through the ceiling and reach up to the sky with magic ladders.

“Draw me pictures,” she hears her dad say. “Draw me lots of pictures.”

Her mom takes the phone and shoos both girls out of the kitchen so she can have a minute alone with Dad.

Alice listens outside the door.

“Did you get your orders?”

“Yeah, we did.”

“Where are they putting you?”

“F.O.B. Falcon. For the time being.”

“Where’s that?”

“Somewhere between Baghdad and Falluja.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“It should be pretty interesting, actually.”

“Still reconnaissance and surveillance?”

“And artillery.”

“I thought you’d be in engineering.”

“It’s the surge, Angie. They need boots on the ground.”

“Or transport. Or supply. Or security.”

“You get assigned.”

“What about rebuilding roads and schools and bridges and . . . Do they know you’re an engineer?”

“Of course.”

“Your CO. Does he know? Can you remind him?”

“It’s the
army
, Angie.”

“I know, but—”

“Write to me, sweetheart.”

“Okay.”

“Letters are like . . . You have no idea how important they are. Mail call . . .”

“Every day.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“You’re my girl and I love you.”

“Come home to me.”

“I will. You know I will.”

 

The doorbell rings; Janna’s mother Joyce is at the door. Alice helps find Janna’s back pack and sneakers, the Shrek lunch box, and her jacket and sweater, and she even manages to say the right things to Janna’s mom, who is on her way home from her job at the cosmetics store at the mall and looks tired and a little frazzled.

“My feet are killing me, my cheeks are killing me, I’m so sick of smiling; I can’t wait to get home and have a nice cold beer. I probably shouldn’t say that in front of you kids, but a day like today? A beer is my one true reward.”

She and Janna head down the walk.

Ellie waves from the door.

“I’m gonna draw Daddy a picture right now.”

“Good idea.”

“I’m gonna draw Daddy a picture every day.”

“He’ll like that.”

“And send it to him. So I can tell him my story, little by little, day by day, like we’re on the installment plan.”

Ellie gets out her crayons and markers and paper and starts to draw right there at the dining room table with Alice beside her. Alice digs her math homework out of her back pocket and starts solving problems with one of Ellie’s pencils. They sit there, drawing and doing math, like they’re not hungry, like it’s not time for dinner, like they can’t hear their mother sobbing on the other side of the kitchen door.

“You want to take a walk?” Alice asks.

“Now? I’m hungry.”

“I know.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t leave Mom.”

“Just for a little while.”

“Okay.”

In the front hall they pull on jackets. Ellie steps into her pink boots and insists on finding the matching mittens to her pink hat.

Outside it’s colder and darker than either of them expected. At the end of their driveway they turn left and head away from their usual route to school on Baird Road. The sidewalks are covered with rutted, frozen slush. Ellie reaches out and takes Alice’s hand. They walk for a while, not saying anything, their breath puffing out of their mouths. Alice tries to make rings with her breath but can’t. Ellie tries snorting like a dragon to see if she can get steam to come out of her nose.

“Is it winter where Daddy is going?”

“Yeah.”

“Winter like this?”

“I don’t know. I think so.”

“Snow and everything?”

“I’ll find out.”

“I’m cold.”

As they turn toward home, Ellie trips and falls on the ice, hard. Alice picks her up before she can even start crying and feels something warm and wet on her neck.

“Is your nose bleeding?”

Ellie puts one pink mitten up to her nose, it comes away red, and she starts to wail.

“It’s okay, Ellie. We’ll get you fixed up at home.”

“My mittens!”

“They’ll be okay.”

“No they won’t!”

“I’ll wash them.”

“They’re my favorite ones.”

“I know.”

“Can’t you go any faster? Daddy can carry me faster.”

“He’s bigger than me.”

“And stronger. And nicer.”

“I’m being pretty nice right now.”

“Can I have ice cream for dinner?”

“Not that nice.”

Ellie gets heavier and heavier with every step. When Alice finally turns into their yard, she’s sweating and breathing hard. They get through the front door and head straight into the kitchen. Mom is long gone. No dinner preparations in sight. Alice sits Ellie right on the sink and starts to assess the damage.

“I think you’re gonna live.”

“Is it broken?”

“Not a chance.”

“You sure?”

“Split your lip, though.”

“Really?”

“And you’ve got a little gash on your chin.”

Alice slips off Ellie’s jacket and turns it inside out so she can’t see the blood. She grabs a paper towel and wipes Ellie’s blood from her cheek and chin.

“You’re a mess, Alice.”

“Thanks a lot.”

She tosses her own jacket on top of Ellie’s.

“Give me your mittens, too. I’ll get them soaking downstairs.”

“Will you make dinner?”

“As soon as I put our jackets in the wash. I’m gonna give you some ice for your lip, okay?”

She hands Ellie an ice cube wrapped in a dishcloth.

“Hold that right on your lip. Don’t press. I’ll be right back.”

Alice runs down the basement stairs, turns on the washer, and fills up the sink to soak Ellie’s mittens. She’s secretly glad to have stuff to do. She charges back up the stairs and checks out the fridge.

“You good with grilled cheese and tomato soup?”

“Again?”

Alice gives her a look.

“Get your book and read in here to keep me company, okay?”

“Should I call Mom?”

“No, let’s surprise her.”

“I could make her a tray.”

“Good idea.”

While Alice makes grilled cheese sandwiches, the slow, slow, slow way her dad makes them, Ellie gets the tray off the hall table. She finds a cloth napkin to make a little placemat, then sets the tray with the nice china from the china cabinet.

“I need a flower and a vase.”

“You could draw one.”

“And then can I stir the soup?”

“Yup.”

“And pour the milk?”

“It’s really heavy, Ellie.”

“I can do it.”

Alice pulls the stool over so Ellie can stir the soup. She sets the table for the two of them.

“The tray looks nice.”

“You think Mom will like it?” Ellie asks.

“Yup.”

“I want ice cream for dessert.”

“Okay.”

“Neapolitan.”

“We’ll see what we’ve got.”

Alice pours soup into bowls and cuts the sandwiches in triangles the way Ellie likes them, while Ellie pours the milk.

“I want to carry the tray.”

“How about if you carry the plate and I’ll carry the tray with the soup.”

“I won’t spill.”

“It’s even hard for me not to spill.”

“Okay.”

Upstairs, neither one of them has a hand free to knock on the door to the bedroom. Ellie gives three little kicks with her foot.

“Mom?”

The room is dark. Angie has kicked off her heels and is lying on top of the bed with a cold cloth over her eyes.

“Mom?”

“Not now.”

“We brought you some dinner.”

“I’m really not hungry.”

“On a tray.”

Angie opens her eyes and sits up in bed. She reaches over and turns on the bedside lamp. Alice sets the tray on her lap. Ellie sets the pink scallop-edged plate with the grilled cheese sandwich in the exact center of the tray.

“I split my lip on the ice,” Ellie says.

“We just went for a little walk.”

“My nose was bleeding, too. I bled all over Alice.”

“It’s okay. I’ve got our jackets in the wash already.”

“Alice carried me all the way home and fixed me up and made dinner. I helped. I drew you a flower because we didn’t have one to put on your tray.”

Angie reaches out to touch Ellie’s lip. She wants to say thank you but she’s not sure she can trust herself to say anything at all.

 

After dinner, after washing the dishes and locking up the house, Alice climbs upstairs to find that Ellie has fallen asleep with her clothes on right on top of the covers. Ellie should have had a bath, Alice realizes, but it’s too late now. She pulls off Ellie’s shoes and socks and sweater and manages to slide her under the covers. How can she sleep through all that? Her lip is swelling and her chin has a dark bruise.

Alice sits down at her desk by the window and realizes that none of her homework is done and she is too tired to read about the Revolutionary War now. She looks across the backyard to her dad’s workshop sitting squat and dark in the moonlight. That is absolutely too sad to dwell on, so she opens the window and sticks her head out, craning her neck to see Henry’s house down the block, but his window is dark, too. She looks at her dad’s watch and rights it on her wrist so she can read the dial: ten o’clock.

She listens to Ellie snoring and thinks of hearing her dad’s voice coming through the phone, saying: “Angie . . . ?” Did they say good-bye? Did they ever actually say good-bye? She thinks of her mom’s untouched tray, Ellie’s bloody mittens, she hopes their jackets will be dry in the morning, and somewhere in there—after she gets up and gets her old stuffed bear off the shelf, which feels silly and childish but right now she doesn’t care—somewhere in there, she falls asleep.

Alice and Henry walk Ellie to school every morning, and then instead of climbing the hill and crossing the middle school playing fields to get to the high school, they go the long way around, down Belknap Road and past the Four Corners. Alice and Henry could take the bus but they both hate the bus. Nothing good ever happens on that bus. They walk no matter what the weather so they can just
be
for twenty minutes before school. They don’t talk much; some days they don’t talk at all.

Henry and Alice have known each other, as their parents like to say, since they were in utero. This phraseology has become less and less charming the older they get. They’ve also been stuck having play dates since they were born because their families are neighbors. This was not such a big deal in grade school. Fifth grade got a little uncomfortable. If they could have gone to different middle and high schools it might’ve been better. But it is what it is.

The facts include things like Henry coming home from school in second grade and telling his mom, “I’m going to marry Alice. William wants to marry her, too, but he can’t.” Their mothers repeat this stuff. Still! They also got caught—of course—stealing candy from Mr. Ricci’s corner store and playing doctor and locking Ellie in a closet—she had a flashlight!—and whatever else little kids get up to. And just when Alice thinks she can’t stand one more day of enforced friendship with Henry, he will do something so amazing that she thinks he’s a saint or something.

Henry was always small for his age. So small that his parents worried and his doctors worried and Henry had to go through all these tests and things. But in the last six months, he has grown six inches. Henry is not the same boy. At all.

Sometimes Alice looks into his face and sees that his eyes are grayer and he has these cheekbones that look about as sharp as his ankles and wrists. Everything about Henry is a little angular and over defined, like all that fast growing hasn’t given his skin a chance to catch up yet. It’s like he’s still two people: little kid Henry and growing up Henry, and Alice is watching those two people switch places right in front of her eyes.

Henry’s brother, Rob, is a lot older. He’s already graduated from college in Boston and is working for a relief organization in Haiti. So his parents are older, too, and Alice’s mom is always saying that Henry’s the kind of kid who needs to come from a big family. He needs the noise and the friction and the company. Not that the Blisses actually qualify as a big family, but if you add Henry, their numbers start to look a little more substantial.

Today Henry is worried about baseball tryouts. He loves to play baseball, but he pretty much sucks in every position. And Alice, who goes to most of Henry’s games, has seen him play just about every position. Coaches move Henry around the field, thinking if they could just harness all that enthusiasm, some talent might emerge.

Alice has spent long spring and summer evenings playing catch with Henry, trying to pitch for Henry, and trying to field for Henry. Occasionally her dad would join them and they’d toss the ball around in the spring twilight, the streetlights coming on one by one, crickets whirring, that damp, green spring smell redolent in the air around them. Something else was in the air as well; something about promise and possibility and another beginning, another summer just around the corner.

But with her dad gone, they have not been tossing the ball around much. In fact, Alice doesn’t even know where her mitt is.