The Evolution of Alice (23 page)

In the reflection she saw every tired, deep line on her face. She thought of when they first met and how she looked now after everything that had happened, the hurricane that was their relationship, the relief of seeing him gone, and, finally, the pain of losing Grace. She looked away, down to her hands, her fingers clasped desperately, shaking and sweaty and cold. She worried about holding the telephone receiver, if she’d be able to keep her hands still when he arrived. Perhaps it was better to think about that than what he would think about seeing her. But, God, why did she have to be so unsettled in the first place? He always did this to her. He always broke her down. He always changed her.

She had felt brave walking into Stony Mountain Penitentiary. She had walked in confidently, with her chest puffed out and proud, her chin high. It had been a good day, and good days were rare. Alice cherished days like today. Gideon had come by in the morning to pick Kathy, Jayne, and her up. The girls were happy to see him. It had been too long since they’d spent time with him. She regretted leaving the rez like she had, even though, at the time, it felt necessary. She saw what it had done to the girls. They were lonely and empty from the loss of Grace, and then she’d moved them away from their surrogate uncle. She wondered what it had done to Gideon, too. But he’d loaded up the truck in good spirits, and they left. It felt good when the city was in the rear-view mirror, like she could breathe again.

The farther they went, the smaller the city got, and soon the penitentiary loomed on the horizon. Despite everything that had happened with Ryan, she’d always felt drawn there, ever since he’d been convicted. Just like each time he hit her and she wanted to leave, but stayed. It was different this time. She wanted to see him of her own volition. She knew she had words for him, just not what those words were. But she was sure they’d come in their own time, they would be said, and he would hear them. She had trusted in that until she’d sat down to wait for him. Then the trust faded.

She unclasped her fingers and rested her hands, palms up, on the desk in front of her. She looked at them carefully, inspecting the lines on her palms as though they were a roadmap, as though she were lost somewhere. Her hands—they always got shaky and cold when she was scared or nervous. For no particular reason, Alice thought of when she’d been afraid to get onto the plane to Anchorage to visit relatives. She’d never flown before. Ryan had seen her hands clasping the sides of her seat and had sung a song he wrote for her—he always sang that song to calm her. She heard his voice:

Walk on down the side of the road,

Walk until I see my soul.

But I can’t stand

The sight of my life tonight.

She was never sure if it was the lyrics or his voice that calmed her. All she knew was that later, when Ryan started to scare her, when Ryan made her nervous, there was no song any more, and so there was no calm.

A knock against the glass brought Alice back. She looked up to see him sitting down. She noticed immediately how the blue prison jumpsuit brought out his eyes. She tried hard not to look at them. It was an odd feeling—being drawn to them but feeling sick to her stomach at the same time. It was always in the eyes. Always, after he had beat on her and had returned from one of his walks, he would talk sweet to her, strike her with those eyes, and she’d take him back, forgive him. And hate herself a little more. He pointed to the telephone receiver at her side. She nodded and fumbled with it just as she had feared. Her fingers felt as though she’d been out in the cold. She held it to her ear.

The two of them sat with the thick pane of glass between them and didn’t say anything for a long time. Alice closed her eyes. It was like the first time they’d spoken on the phone before they started dating, when they didn’t say anything for the longest time, just listened to each other’s nervous breaths. They spoke in breaths now, and their breathing said enough. Her breath was quick and quivering. She didn’t want it to be because she didn’t want him to know how she felt, or that she felt anything at all. She listened to his breath carefully and tried to hear how he felt. His breath was steady, measured, and it disappointed her. She opened her eyes.

“I thought you didn’t want to talk to me again,” he said.

“I didn’t,” she said. “I don’t.”

He didn’t look away from her, nor did he blink. How could he not blink? Alice took a deep breath that didn’t calm her. Even through the murky glass his eyes were clear blue. She tore her eyes away from his and looked at a deep bruise on his forearm.

“What’s that from?” she said.

“Don’t mind it,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried,” she said.

He rubbed the bruise, then crossed his arms to cover it. The phone receiver rested between his shoulder and ear.

“It gets rough in here,” he said.

She scanned the rest of his body. She didn’t see any other bruises. She was surprised that this disappointed her.

“Do you have lots of those?” she said.

“Some,” he said.

She involuntarily rubbed her own skin—her cheek, her neck. There were no bruises for her to cover any more. She looked him in the eyes again.

“How does it feel when you get hurt?” she said.

Ryan shifted in his seat, let out a sigh, and looked away. He didn’t have to answer her; she knew damn well how it felt and she could only hope that he knew then how she’d felt when he’d put his hands on her. The way she was then, meek and small and damaged, is how he looked now. She started to say something but stopped herself. She wanted to see the bruises he had been given, but it was not like her to want something like that.

“Are you afraid in there?” she said.

“Sometimes,” he said.

He sat up straight. He looked at the desk in front of him. There was nothing on the desk. She inspected his face. There were large bags under his eyes and deep lines like cracks on a windshield. He looked older than he had been before he was arrested. He looked older than he should have. She looked closer. There were tiny cuts on his lips, but not because his lips were chapped.

“What’s wrong with your lips?” she said.

He shook his head.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Nothing?” she said.

He took a deep breath. She saw his chest rise and fall.

“I was eating glass,” he said quietly, perhaps hoping she wouldn’t hear him.

“You what? Why would you do that?” she said.

He didn’t answer.

“Ryan, why would you do that?”

He slumped forward on his arms and his head dropped. She hadn’t seen him like this before. She sat up a bit straighter.

He spoke without lifting his head. “You know, when I was younger, my dad used to lock me in his closet. He did worse stuff, I guess, but I hated being in that fucking closet. I think I’m, like, claustrophobic or something. I always felt like I was getting crushed in there.”

Alice nodded. This was news to her. Ryan had never talked about his childhood. He never really opened up about anything.

“Being in that cell reminds me of being in my dad’s closet. I need to get out of here, but there isn’t any getting out. Not for a while.”

He lifted his head up. He rubbed at his lips. He chuckled.

“I heard that if I started bleeding inside they’d bring me to the hospital, so I ate a fucking light bulb. Figured it would get me out of here for a bit,” he said.

“Ryan,” she said.

He chuckled harder. He laughed without smiling.

“I didn’t get anywhere though. Tried it a few times. Didn’t bleed once where I needed to.”

Alice turned away because she didn’t want him to see her face, didn’t want him to know she felt bad for him. She wished she didn’t care at all. She wanted him to think she was strong and resilient, that she was getting on fine without him, that he wasn’t needed, not by the girls, and not by her. But then her hand, which had settled down, began to shake. Her breathing was short, and she began to tremble. She held the receiver away from her mouth so he couldn’t hear it.

“Do the girls ever ask about me?” he said.

She shook her head without looking at him.

“No,” she said, “they don’t.”

The silence returned. Alice closed her eyes. She remembered the silence after he would return from one of his walks, the silence after he told her he was sorry, after he kissed her bruises. He used to wait for her forgiveness, and she always forgave him, and maybe she meant it. Maybe she’d meant it each time. She was never sure what she was more afraid of: being with him, or alone.

“I have that picture of you and the girls still,” he said. “The one where you’re all in the field.”

She nodded. She was still hiding her face and she needed to calm herself.

“I have it tacked up on my wall. It’s the only good thing in my cell, that picture on my wall,” he said.

“That’s nice. That’s a nice picture,” she said.

“Everybody looks so happy,” he said. “When I look at that picture, I can just see everything happening right then. It was so windy. The girls’ hair all whipping around in the wind. It was so fucking windy. You looked happy too,” he said.

Alice looked at him and saw that he was looking right at her with those perfect blue eyes.

“We weren’t happy,” she said.

“Sure we were,” he said. “Sure you were.”

Alice shook her head.

“Do you remember what happened before that picture? Right before that picture?” she said.

He shook his head.

“No, I don’t remember,” he said.

“Of course you don’t,” she said.

There was another silence. Alice closed her eyes. She thought of when the
RCMP
drove away with Ryan in the back seat. She had wanted silence for a long time—the silence in the breeze, in the endless field of grass behind her house, within the walls of her trailer. She opened her eyes. She had done the same thing with that picture; pretended it was something other than what it was. She couldn’t really blame him for doing the same.

“I miss Grace, you know,” he said.

She looked away. Her hand started to shake even more. Her chest felt hot. She felt like slamming the receiver against the wall.

“What about the other girls?” she said.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“You never see them. They may as well all be dead. Kathy, Jayne, and Grace. Do you miss all of them?” she said.

“Of course I miss all of them. I miss you too,” he said.

“Don’t tell me you miss me,” she said.

This time, she couldn’t hide her shaking hand from him. She was looking at the floor, at her camouflage Converse sneakers, when she heard the first notes of the song, his song. She kept looking at her sneakers when she heard his voice.

Walk on down the side of the road,

Walk until I see my soul.

But I can’t stand

The sight of my life tonight.

Walk on down the side of the road,

All these memories getting old,

And I guess that

All I have is what I had.

She looked up suddenly. She looked right at him.

“Walk on down …”

“I don’t want you to sing to me. You can’t sing to me anymore.”

When she said those words, her hand stopped shaking and her breath evened out. Perhaps that’s what she had wanted to say to him all along.

She started to stand, but Ryan called out, “Alice, wait.”

“What?” she said.

There was silence. She kept her eyes trained on him, and she held his gaze. She’d seen this look before, after his walks, each time he had asked her to forgive him, each time he had waited for an answer.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything,” he said.

She knew what she’d said too many times before. She nodded her head and hung up the receiver.

“I know you are,” she mouthed.

She walked away.

Morgan got off the 17, relieved to be alone when the bus pulled away from the curb. She always felt the same way at the end of bus rides. Why did she feel lonelier when she was around people than when she was actually alone? She could only reason that the memories kept her better company, as painful as they were.

She crossed the street toward Central Park and once inside surveyed the scenery as though there might be something different to see. The splash pad to the right was shut down and unoccupied. She’d rarely seen the water turned on or children playing in it, or children playing anywhere else in the park for that matter. She always chose the right time for her visits—the fewer people the better. She followed the cement pathway through the park, walking between the splash pad and the field with its cheap artificial turf, the kind of green shit she remembered stapled to the roof of her adopted father’s nativity scene. It made her sick to look at it. When she finally made it across the park and hopped over the black wrought iron fence, she was once again relieved.

And then she stood there, in the middle of the sidewalk, looking up to the top floor of an apartment building on Cumberland, her eyes fixed on an empty balcony, her mind imagining something there. A figure in the shadows, somebody with their eyes fixed back on her.

After she’d been standing there for a few minutes, she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder and turned around to see a familiar face: the man she’d met briefly at the Yellow Dog Tavern. He smiled at her but seemed unsure of what to say. They looked
at each other a moment and then together looked up to the empty balcony.

“I think I can see her sometimes,” Morgan said. “Evelyn.”

“Yeah,” the man said. “That happens when you miss somebody a lot.”

They were quiet for a time, and in the silence Morgan wondered why he had stopped to talk to her. She’d wondered the same thing the last time she’d seen him. She would’ve thought he was stalking her if she wasn’t in front of his own apartment building. Still, she didn’t want him to leave. He wasn’t like one of the passengers on her bus. He was different.