Saving Alice (10 page)
“It was all my fault, Stephen.”
“No, it wasn’t,” I said.
She nodded. “I knew in my heart why you were marrying me…”
I shook my head to object, but she didn’t stop.
“I ignored my head and followed my heart,” she said.
“But it doesn’t matter how it started,” I said.
She only smiled sadly. “We both tried to keep her memory alive.” She blew out another breath. “We even named our daughter after her, Stephen. What on earth were we thinking?”
We heard a click from the front door. “Mom … are we going? I have to meet Denise at—”
“Just a minute, honey,” Donna replied softly, and we traded glances, wondering if Alycia had heard the last comment. I tried to catch Alycia’s eye, but she was already on her way back to the car.
I turned to Donna. She looked away and bit her lip as though trying not to cry.
I reached for her but she pulled away.
“Don’t go, Donna,” I whispered, but her face turned stony again.
“I don’t blame you for leaving,” I added. “I’ve been …” I stopped, then started again. “I’ve been a terrible provider.” Donna blew out an incredulous breath. “Oh, Stephen…”
“Are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you? We’ve got a little savings. At least half is yours.”
She shook her head and let out one long sigh, then slowly walked to the door.
With her hand on the knob, she paused again, then turned to me. “I failed you, didn’t I?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“But I promised.”
“It was an impossible promise,” I replied.
Our eyes met, and she seemed to accept this. There was nothing left to say. After fourteen years, we’d exhausted our supply. And with that, Donna slipped out the door.
I
didn’t budge from the hallway wall for the longest time, as if lingering at the scene of an accident, gawking at the carnage. Donna’s words echoed in my mind:
“My favorite isn’t up here anymore…. You’ve forgotten everything.”
Most of the pictures were posed studio photography: a family portrait, taken two years ago when Turbo, our misshapen Labrador, was still alive. Grasping Turbo’s neck like an oversized fuzzy black lollipop, ten-year-old Alycia smiled enthusiastically for the camera. Donna’s pose was proud and motherly, and mine, formal and professional.
Alycia’s brown hair was lighter, more curly, her freckles more prominent, and the glint in her eyes as yet undiminished. But when I looked closer, I saw the spark of something to come and felt another twinge of regret.
Next to this was another taken of us at the Mall of America in Minneapolis during a weekend trip, an automatic digital photo of us on the roller coaster—Alycia with her hands in the air, Donna, grinning wide-eyed, and me, holding on for dear life.
“I want a divorce”
rang over and over in my head.
The walls were closing in on me. I went to the kitchen, ignored the papers on the table, and grabbed my car keys. Closing the door, I locked up the house, then sat down on the concrete step for a moment, taking in the neighborhood. Except for the clouds of moisture from my lips, the air seemed frozen. Above me, the sun struggled through a restraining gray cloud.
I idly wondered if any of our neighbors had observed Donna’s departure. Across the street, Mrs. Saabe, the sweet elderly widow, was wandering around her yard with a watering can, hydrating her collection of marigolds along the sidewalk, for their one last gasp before winter took full control. Apparently, she hadn’t figured anything out yet, because she gave me an enthusiastic wave before continuing her gardening, now leaning over and pulling a few bedraggled weeds.
Regardless, I knew I soon would have a series of unpleasant questions to face:
“How is Donna? I haven’t seen her around lately.”
Then again, news travels fast in a small town. If they didn’t already know, they’d know by tonight.
I took a drive, heading south to Eighth Street, then east to Roosevelt, winding my way to Sixth Avenue, which ultimately became Highway 12. Eventually the trees disappeared, revealing a broad horizon of mind-numbingly flat farmland, where all roads intersect at unimaginative right angles.
Farther out of town, a gentle wind blew a dusty white sheet of snow across the icy highway, wispy and ghostlike, like the sands of time slithering before me. Little bristles of tan weeds jutted above the recent snowfall.
A few miles later, I passed a half-frozen small pond on the left, where shivering mallards, taken by surprise with this early winter weather, bobbed their heads into the water, flapping for balance.
Before my cell phone signal could fade out, I called my mom and gave her the news. Although acutely disappointed, she didn’t seem surprised. Perhaps Donna had already briefed her.
“Are you okay, Stephen?”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said, recalling my mother’s fondness for Donna.
“Is there any hope, Stephen?”
I took a breath and considered Donna’s determination. “Yes,” I replied weakly. “There’s always hope.”
“Good for you, Stephen.” She wondered where Donna would be staying and I told her. We talked a bit longer, and I voiced my concern for Alycia.
“Kids are resilient,” she said. “But don’t give up on her. She’s a moody one.”
I smiled at my mother’s interesting choice of words. When it was time to hang up, I told her I loved her. “I don’t think it’s hit you, Stephen,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I’m praying for you. I’m praying for all three of you.”
I called Larry next.
“Need some time off?” he asked, and I declined.
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Need time to think,” I told him.
“Mmm-hmm,” he replied, and I could read his mind. In his opinion, expressed in countless conversations over the years: thinking—or
over
thinking—was at the heart of my problem.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said and hung up.
I tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and vaguely remembered a time when Larry wouldn’t have taken
no
for an answer. He would have insisted on getting together to offer support.
Driving into the snow-covered fields, beneath the cloud-trapped sun, surrounded by the harshness of winter air, vivid images came out of nowhere—things I hadn’t thought about in years—and most of the memories depressed me, not because our marriage had been all sad but because if this was the end, even the good memories would always contain an underlying tinge of hopelessness.
Some memories were hopeless by definition, like the time when Donna’s parents stayed a week when Alycia was only seven. Donna’s mother had cornered me in the kitchen. “You’ve ruined my daughter,” she said urgently. “I don’t even recognize her.”
At first, I was taken aback by the harshness of her word choice.
Ruined
her daughter? But instead of arguing, I stood there like a guilty man, unable to answer, which only fueled her flame of indignation. I tried to think of what I had done to hurt Donna. In the early years, we rarely fought, and I never berated her, but her mother was quick to fill in the blanks. “She’s not the same girl we raised.”
“What has changed?” I finally managed to ask.
“You drink.”
“Not anymore,” I replied.
Donna’s mother scowled at me. “Don’t lie to me, Stephen Whitaker. I know you go to that bar.”
“But—”
“And now she sees movies!” her mother exclaimed, and I wondered how she knew. In anticipation of her parents’ visit, we’d even hidden the television set in a closet.
“Disney,” I replied, which was a half truth.
“Doesn’t matter,” her mother countered, lips firm. “She knows better.”
After Donna had seen her first movie in college—
The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes
—she’d promptly rushed back to the dorm in tears, thoroughly repentant.
Paradoxically, she and her parents didn’t view literature in the same way, leading me to wonder if Donna compensated for her strict upbringing by reading everything she could get her hands on. And while I couldn’t argue with her mother’s points, they didn’t add up to marital abuse, at least in my mind.
Didn’t matter. According to Donna’s parents, she’d left the straight and narrow, and it wasn’t Donna’s fault. It was mine.
As I drove and dusk descended, the growing darkness seemed almost sinister.
Surely our marriage wasn’t for nothing,
I rationalized, as if I needed it to have meant something. And yet all the struggles, all the tears, all the good old-fashioned hard work and compromises seemed pointless unless you could achieve the blessed “till death do us part.”
We wasted a decade,
she’d said, because for her, the good times weren’t enough to redeem the bad.
It’s not over yet,
I thought, as if trying to convince myself.
Eventually, I turned the car around and headed toward home. When I reentered our neighborhood, I parked on the street before remembering the empty garage. Had Donna left the remote? Doubtful. Most likely, it was still attached to her visor.
I gripped the steering wheel. In the stillness of my car, I took several deep breaths, leaning back in the bucket seat, unsure of what to do next.
I finally got out of the car and walked to the garage, unlocked the door, and pressed the opener. Although I was prepared for it, the mechanical sound startled me, and in that split-second space between dark and light, her car reappeared in its usual spot only to disappear again.
Turning on the light, my movements seemed suddenly imbued with hyper self-awareness, as if I were watching myself, studying my reactions, wondering if I might at last be coming undone.
Shaking my head, I went inside the house and puttered around in the kitchen for a few minutes. On the dining room table lay the garage remote.
I sighed and felt myself drawn back to the pictures again, as if unable to stop beating my head against the wall. I removed the photo of Alycia at age eight, and I sat at the sofa facing the front window, studying it.
The first tears slipped down my face.
Our marriage wasn’t for nothing,
I told myself, tracing the outline of Alycia’s eyes with my fingers.
“She’s more fragile than you think,”
Donna had insisted.
Losing my battle with self-pity, I clutched my daughter’s photo tightly to my chest and leaned back.
Surely there’s still a chance,
I thought.
As twilight deepened into darkness, I headed downstairs to my office. The walls seemed to echo with the latest memories, including a tense exchange with my daughter nearly a year ago. Rarely have I walked into my office without a tiny flicker of recollection. Before, the memories seemed painful, but now I welcomed anything that reminded me of my little girl.
“Let me get this straight.” Alycia’s words were clipped and incredulous. “You’re building … an office … right next door … to my room?”
“I don’t mind your music,” I’d said. “We can coexist peaceably.” She wasn’t amused and turned to her mother. “Can I have the upstairs room?”
“That’s Mom’s sewing room,” I intervened.
“So?” Alycia exclaimed. “She doesn’t sew anymore.”
I switched gears. “It’s storage now.”
“She can use mine for that.”
“I’m not going to spy on you,” I interjected.
“Spying on me will be the inevitable result,” she countered.
Inevitable result?
Donna broke in, “Take my room, Alycia. I don’t mind.”
Alycia threw me an eye dagger and stormed out of the kitchen. From across the living room door she yelled: “Just forget it! I don’t even care. From now on, I won’t come home unless I absolutely have to.”
“Perhaps to collect your allowance?” I retorted.
Donna cast me a disapproving glare just before Alycia huffed out of the house.
Memories of my selfishness now repulsed me, and in the complete darkness of the room—where I was finally hidden—I put my hands to my face and let it all out. I wept for Alycia. And I wept for what I’d done to her mother, who had deserved far better.
Hours later, I awakened to a strange vibration. Opening my eyes, I saw my phone blinking, its buzz muffled on the carpet. I must have turned off the sound.
“Need some company?” Larry asked. “I’m hungry. My treat.”
I hesitated, knowing Larry well enough. He wasn’t just hungry. Bone tired, and against my better judgment, I agreed to meet him at the Pizza Inn on Sixth Avenue.
Twenty minutes later, I found Larry standing outside the whitebrick building, blowing into his hands and rubbing them together. He looked like a menacing Mafia figure in his black overcoat.
I parked and met him at the door. Once inside, we ordered pepperoni and sausage, and I sequenced the gory details. When I finished, he gave me a serious look. “Sounds to me like she didn’t want to leave.”
I frowned, wondering what part of my story he’d missed.
“I know what she said,” Larry continued. “But maybe she’s just trying to get your attention.”
Only a lifelong friend is that pointed, although Larry never let something as small as tactlessness get in the way of his opinions.
Larry continued to probe. “Did you ask her to stay?”
“Of course.”
“Just call her. See how she’s doing.”
“Maybe she needs some time.”
“You aren’t gonna fight for her?” Larry shook his head, and expelled an impatient breath.
“C’mon, Larry. We’ve been through this.”
“Is it our finances?” Larry asked, raising his eyebrows.
I shrugged.
How could it not be?
“Did you tell her things are looking up?”
I nodded. I’d been telling her this for years.
Larry gestured to the waitress across the room, then leaned forward. “Passion doesn’t last, Stephen. Not for anyone. You have to settle for mutual regard. You have to embrace practicality, and appreciate convenience.”
Larry viewed life in black-and-white, either-or terms. In his universe, shades of color didn’t exist, and neither did ambiguity or imprecision. His remarks to me often contained the words,
In the final analysis,
which rarely followed with
any
analysis on his part— instead spoken as a way of cutting through mine.
There had been times when I’d wondered how we’d stayed friends so long. But in high school, we were more alike: He was a bit more reflective, I was much more optimistic, and somehow we met in the middle.
“ That’s not what Donna wants,” I said. “She wants …” I stopped, unable to continue.
Larry frowned. “Just give her what she wants.”
I did,
I thought. No, that wasn’t true. I tried. And sometimes I probably didn’t try hard enough.
It was pointless to continue. The waitress brought the check, and Larry, without looking at the bill, handed her his credit card. It was his turn to pay. Larry frowned at the bill, then looked up, his expression sober. “I’m not sure I ever loved Megan. Until she left, that is. I learned my lesson the hard way, after it was too late. But it’s still not too late for you.” He studied me for a moment. “Don’t you miss Donna?”