The Fall of Alice K. (34 page)

Yes, she and Nickson had sex on the twelfth day. Oh, but they also had sex on the fourteenth. She wasn't going to panic: this was part of the shock treatment she needed to come back to reality. When she felt a sharp cramp the next day, she thought her worries were over, but then nothing happened. To put her fears to rest, she decided to get a pregnancy test kit, but she couldn't decide where to buy one. She couldn't go to the drug store in the Dutch Center mini-mall because it was owned and operated by a deacon in their church. She couldn't go to Corner Drug in Brummel City either because everybody who worked there had
kids at Midwest Christian. She couldn't think of anyplace nearby where people wouldn't have some connection to her parents or to students at MC. She was not terribly anxious. In truth, she felt quite optimistic. She was back in problem-solving mode.

She thought of the Walmart that had opened on the outskirts of Brummel City. They had several Mexican workers who were not likely to recognize her and who most likely went to the River Valley Catholic Church.

She drove to Walmart on that Saturday morning under the pretense that she was going to visit Aldah at Children's Care. She was right: the person at the Walmart register was Hispanic. Alice looked around, saw no one she knew, and quickly purchased the self-test kit. Alone in the Walmart bathroom, she watched the little spot where she put a drop of her urine and waited for it to turn green. The green light would actually be like a yellow light of warning: she and Nickson had to stop having sex. They had to cool down, which was inevitable anyhow because the realities of winter weather would be stronger than her fantasies of outmaneuvering them. How did she really think they were going to get together in midwinter: Public restrooms? The backseats of unlocked snow-covered cars in parking lots? Her late period no doubt was the result of the stress she was under and was the warning that would help her come back to her senses: she would stop having sex with Nickson, and they would have the debate-partner relationship that she originally intended. No
eros.
All
caritas.
The little dot on the test sheet didn't hesitate. It turned pink. Alone in the Walmart bathroom that Saturday morning, she learned that she was pregnant. She stared at the gray toilet-stall walls. Numb. Alice Marie Krayenbraak had conceived with Nickson Vang.

Or had she? She reread the instructions, especially the section about reliability. It warned that the results would not be one hundred percent accurate. Of course not. This was just a fluke, and she had gotten a false positive. With Nickson's caution, there was no way she could be pregnant. She checked her wallet to see if she had enough money to purchase another kit. She would be spending all of her lunch money on pregnancy tests, but so be it. Skipping a few meals could be no worse than bathing in cold water. She went up to the cash register with a second pregnancy test.

The Hispanic woman—and this time Alice looked at her more
closely—saw her coming and saw what she was carrying. The woman was about forty-five, her hair pulled back and clipped with a shiny plastic barrette. Her face looked kind but worn, a gentle toughness. She started smiling sympathetically when Alice laid the kit down.

She reached out and took Alice's arm. Alice would never forget the woman's dark, kind eyes.

“You didn't like what it said, did you?”

Alice didn't want this familiarity. She didn't want anyone to feel they knew this much about her, but the woman looked so kind. Alice wanted to lean over the counter and put her face onto the woman's large bosom and cry.

“I just think I'd better do it again to make sure. I think I got a false positive. I mean, it was pink but not all
that
pink.”

The woman blinked her big sympathetic eyes. “Don't bother, darling, these tests don't lie.”

“Maybe this one did. It's possible. It says right on the package that the results aren't one hundred percent.”

The woman shook her head slowly, still offering her kind smile. “
Chica bonita,
” she said, “you will make a beautiful mother.”

Alice left and got into the 150 to hear the pronounced and familiar double click of the driver's door closing. She held the steering wheel and looked out to see the world moving in slow motion in much the same way it did after Nickson gave her some marijuana.

She put the 150 in drive and idled toward the parking lot exit. Instead of turning toward home, the 150 turned toward Children's Care.

Family members were not supposed to visit without prior arrangements, but the supervisor looked relieved. “Your sister talks about you all the time. Let me tell her you're coming so she won't be shocked.”

Aldah had lost weight, a fact that didn't make her look healthier, just thinner. But her face: her spirit had gotten thinner too.

Alice moved toward Aldah slowly, as if in a dream. Aldah pretended not to recognize her, but Alice walked over and wrapped her arms around her sister. She was giving Aldah the assuring embrace that she needed herself, and she needed to feel that assurance coming back to her. Aldah tightened up in a way that felt more like the very tension Alice was feeling in herself, but Alice didn't let go. Then Aldah's body started
to shake, and she whimpered in Alice's arms until her tears soaked into Alice's shirt at the shoulder. Alice tried to hold her own tears, but when she blinked, large drops spattered on Aldah's unwashed hair. The two of them were together, but they were together in sorrow more than in the comfortable assurance Alice craved.

“Let's take a little walk,” said Alice. Holding hands, they walked to the recreation area where other children played with clay and wooden blocks.

“Is this your sister, Aldah?” asked the attendant.

“Alice,” she said. Finally, Aldah smiled and leaned against Alice, clutching her arm and leaning her head against her side. This was the sweet-mannered Aldah who could get anyone to adore her, and it was behavior now that caused smiles to spread through the room.

Hand in hand, Alice and Aldah walked over to an open area on the floor where two speechless children were rolling balls of clay over and over, one mirroring the other's actions and neither of them saying anything.

Alice sat down and started forming an egg-shaped figure. “Pig,” said Aldah.

“Yes. Pig. Now you make the tail, all right?”

“All right.”

Aldah picked up a piece of clay and rolled it between her palms. The piece of clay broke in two, but she picked it up again and started rolling the clay into the shape of a thin pencil. The attendant watched. “Something's working,” she said.

Alice took Aldah's pig tail and attached it to the round body of the clay pig. “There!” said Alice, and Aldah clapped.

“Would it be all right if I took her for a ride?” Alice asked. “Aldah likes to take rides in the pickup.”

“One-fifty,” said Aldah

“It's a Ford 150 pickup.”

“That would be fine. Just be sure to give the information at the desk, and say when you'll be back. Maybe Aldah would like to bring her new friend.”

This news about Aldah could have been good or bad. Alice's own mood was shifting toward the very comfort she was hoping to find by
driving to Children's Care, but she didn't want to meet a new boyfriend, if that's what this was all about.

“Aldah will tell you all about him, you can be sure of that.” The attendant had a milky caretaker's voice that made Alice cringe.

Aldah's new friend was not flesh and blood at all. Aldah pointed to an empty space in the corner of her room next to her bed. Aldah's new friend was imaginary.

“What is his name?” Alice asked in an earnest and sincere voice.

“David.”

“David?”

Aldah nodded.

An imaginary friend named David? The people at Children's Care seemed to believe that an imaginary friend was good for Aldah, but they didn't know the whole story. Alice wondered if she had made a mistake a long time ago in telling Aldah about David, the brother she never really had. A dead brother. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now Alice wondered.

“How do you know his name is David?”

“He told me.”

“He told you? He said, ‘Hi, my name is David'?”

“Yes.”

Imaginary David had become Aldah's playmate at Children's Care. She showed Alice some of the clay figures David had made. David specialized in cats, cats with round middles, pointed heads, and round marble feet.

“Where's the tail?”

“No tail.”

“No tail? David doesn't make tails?”

“No. Aldah makes tails.”

When they got back to her room, Alice pointed to the clothes strewn on the floor.

“David did this?”

“Yes. David did it.” Aldah picked up the clothes like a disgruntled mother cleaning up behind her child.

“I think David's real name is John,” said Alice. “I think he wants to be called by his real name. Let's call him John.”

“No,” said Aldah. “This David.”

“Are you sure, Aldah?”

“Yes. This is David.” She was staring at the wall next to the door where David had evidently moved.

“Aldah, I am going to have a baby.”

Aldah kept staring at her David but she had heard Alice. “Have a baby?”

“Yes. I am going to be a mommy.”

“I am your mommy,” said Aldah.

“No, Aldah, you are my sister. I am going to be a mommy. You are going to be an aunt.”

Aldah looked to see David's reaction.

“I am going to be a mommy,” said Aldah.

“No. Don't tell people that. I am the one who is going to be a mommy.”

Aldah walked over and hugged Alice.

“It's a secret.”

“A secret,” said Aldah. “Shhhh.”

“Let's leave David here while we go for our ride,” said Alice. “David needs to spend some time by himself.”

“Okay,” Aldah said.

Instead of taking Aldah downtown, Alice drove back to Dutch Center and to the Vangs' house. When they got out of the 150, Aldah waited outside, holding the pickup door. She waited several seconds and made a “come on” gesture with her hand. David had decided to come along and now was being stubborn about getting out of the 150.

New planters with leafy growth sat in the windows. Lia had covered her little herb garden with plastic to protect against frost, but the mound of flip-flops and sandals at the back door had not been replaced with warmer shoes.

Mai saw Alice and Aldah through the kitchen window and bubbled out of the back door to greet them.
My sister-in-law.

Mai invited them in to eat something, though the kitchen table featured a stack of Nickson's textbooks.

“My brother's junk,” said Mai. “He was up at six this morning. Studying.”

“On a Saturday morning?”

“He's always studying.”

Aldah saw the bowl that Mai was carrying to the kitchen table and pulled back a chair to sit down and eat.

As they all ate bowls of rice with cooked broccoli, carrots, and spicy bits of pork, Alice could hear the soft sounds of Lia working.
My mother-in-law.

Nickson walked in dressed in baggy brown pants and a faded green sweatshirt. His hair was messy and his feet were bare. There was no way he could undo his natural beauty.
My husband. My beautiful husband.

“Yo,” he said and sat down next to Aldah. They looked at each other closely, and Alice knew how rare it was for Aldah to make eye contact with strangers. Alice often judged people by Aldah's reaction to them. Nickson was passing with flying colors.
Aldah's brother-in-law.

When they finished eating, Mai asked Aldah to come with her to see what Lia was doing.

“Come see the pretty pictures,” she said. Mai held out her hand to Aldah. Two small hands. The beautiful way the color of their skin contrasted.

Aldah was ready to go with Mai, but she paused to look around the kitchen. She was drawn to the enormous pot hanging on the wall, the bunches of herbs tied in little bundles and drying, and all the planters spewing green leaves. She probably noticed the spicy smell too. Alone in the kitchen, Alice sat across from Nickson and embraced him with her eyes.

“Really glad you stopped by,” he said.

“Me too.”

They walked over to the sewing room where Lia was showing Aldah her story cloths. Now it was Lia who connected with Aldah. She held Aldah's hand and rubbed it over the figures on the story cloth, as if helping to read it through her fingers. Short little stitching needles stood out on the working tables. Colorful threads and scraps of cloth were everywhere, and a stack of finished eyeglass cases, story cloths, and book-markers rose in neat stacks on metal shelving along the wall. This was a high-functioning workroom—and warehouse.

“Pretty,” said Aldah.

“Thank you,” said Lia. Her round face was a sunbeam, and Aldah
was not afraid to look at it. Then she looked into a space next to Lia and gave a separate smile to acknowledge David's presence in the sewing room. Lia followed Aldah's eyes and looked into the same blank space. Lia smiled into the blank space too, and for a moment it seemed that they were both seeing David.

“Let's go downtown,” Alice interrupted. She looked at Mai: “You, me, Aldah, and Nickson.”

Agreement with the suggestion came quickly, and both Mai and Nickson got dressed for the excursion, Nickson appearing in denim slacks and a beige shirt with subtle ruffles along the buttons. Mai soon appeared in black jeans and a beige shirt close to the color of Nickson's.