Saving Alice (28 page)
I
went insane.
I had a vague sense of what had happened, but I was drunk with grief, utterly incapable of grasping reality. My brain became a broken record, the same thoughts playing repeatedly. That superstition about “threes” had lodged in my brain, and I couldn’t give it up.
Someone’s lying. This makes four,
I thought.
And four is one more than three
. Therefore, Alycia was alive. Case closed. Any moment she would call, “Hey, Dad. What’s a girl have to do to get ice cream?”
I awakened that afternoon in the living room, peaceful in my delusions. I sat up on the couch, breathing in, breathing out. My brain was on the fritz, but, as usual, my body knew something was wrong. I trembled uncontrollably as if standing outside in subzero temperatures.
Bits and pieces came back to me. I’d raced to Donna’s apartment. The police and an ambulance were already there. Flashing lights reflected off the houses of the entire neighborhood. Families huddled together in their doorways. My car had squealed to a stop in the middle of the street, and I’d barely pushed the gear into park. It
thunked
into place.
Maybe it’s not too late!
I leapt out of the car, sprinted for the ambulance, but someone grabbed me just as they were rolling the gurney up to its open doors. I reached for Alycia, but they pulled me back. “Can’t let you do that, man!”
When I saw that her face was covered, I staggered and groaned.
She’s just cold, right?
I tried to reach her again without success. I began yelling,
Alycia! Alycia! I’m here, sweetie. I’m late, but I’m here….
They held me back, and I fell to the ground, kneeling in the snow. I felt hands underneath my armpits, helping me to my feet.
Someone’s voice, “Mr. Whitaker?”
I tried to speak, but my throat had closed.
“We’re sorry, but she was gone when we arrived.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was gone, sir.”
I grasped hope.
Gone isn’t dead, is it?
I must have blacked out, because I couldn’t remember anything after that, not even how I’d gotten back home.
Now sitting on the couch, I clasped my hands.
Where is Larry?
Normally, he’d be with me now.
Gone
.
And Paul?
A flutter like birds’ wings passed through my imagination. I was driving back from Milbank. I threw the papers into the wind because I’d memorized the password and account number. And now they came back to me, every number, and every syllable.
I shuddered. I truly was insane.
The phone rang. I examined the Caller ID, and my heart leapt.
It’s Alycia,
I thought. It was just a joke. She’s teaching me a lesson.
Good one, sweetie
.
I grinned through the tears.
Got me good
. Frantically, I grabbed the phone. The voice on the other end felt like a thud against my soul. It was Sally.
“The funeral is Tuesday, Stephen.”
Funeral? Why?
She gave me further details, but none of it registered. She hung up without saying good-bye.
The phone rang again. I wouldn’t have answered it, except I thought Sally was calling back. But it was Susan who sounded frantic. “Oh, Stephen, I just heard. I’m just back from Minnesota. Are you okay? You’re not alone, are you?”
I mumbled something incoherent.
“You
are
alone?” she asked. “Do you want me to come over?”
Why bother?
I thought.
When I hung up, I closed my eyes and tried to remember what I’d said. I then shut off all phones in the house, including the cell.
Finally a sliver of reality broke through. Alycia was dead. I was never going to see her again. She was dead, and it was all my fault. I’d reached for the money and cut her off the face of the earth. I’d killed her as if I’d slit her wrists myself.
What now?
My mind lurched at the money again, and my soul filled with disgust. Two point five. A pile of dust in the wind. I couldn’t even give it to Donna. Too many Feds wearing blue ties. Too many Feds holding cell phones. I thought of Jake and my blood boiled.
Larry was right. Good ol’ steak ’n’ potatoes Larry.
“Next thing you know you’ll be trying to start a car in a closed garage.”
It suddenly dawned on me.
Why not?
I’d been required by a court order to maintain a hefty insurance policy to the tune of half a million dollars. Donna was still the named beneficiary, and by now the suicide clause would have passed the required time limit.
“You’re worth more dead than alive,”
evil Potter had told George Bailey.
I closed my eyes.
No
.
I’d caused it, and I wouldn’t take the coward’s way out. For the rest of my life, I would face my mistakes, and pay for it through sheer regret.
Alycia’s voice whispered in my ear,
“You saved my life! I’m serious!”
Just before she’d left our home, Donna had stood in the hallway, taking one last look at what had been—what might have been. I went to the hallway, steeling myself.
My favorite isn’t up here anymore,
she’d said.
I removed Alycia’s nine-year-old photo from the wall.
See?
She’s alive.
Clutching the photo in my hands, I descended the steps, gripping the railing tightly, heading to my office. The phone rang, but I ignored it.
Inside, I sank into the couch and peered at my daughter—she was full of hope, and fully alive. Memories of our life flew tumbled through my mind, and I remembered the day I’d met Donna at the airport. At the time, we’d been grieving for Alice, devastated by her loss.
I thought of Donna’s love of literature, especially the tragedies I remembered kidding her about it. She’d smiled wryly.
“I love tragedies because I never stop believing that
somehow
everything can be solved. Even at the worst of moments, I imagine the characters finally coming to their senses, imploring God to save them from their foolish thoughts and choices, and then I imagine God … in His brilliant power and majesty snapping His fingers and … Poof! All solved!”
Alycia’s picture slipped between my fingers to the floor, and I buried my head in my hands. Donna’s words continued echoing in my mind:
“God can do anything.”
Looking up again, I caught a glimpse of the Clock Tower photo on the desk, remembering a time when our lives literally dripped with hope. Donna wearing her white corsage. Alice wearing her own white corsage. And me in a black tux.
My head grew more fuzzy.
Give me a second chance,
I whispered, a foolish prayer indeed.
I reached for the Clock Tower photo and gazed at the past.
Let it go
. I turned the photo over on the desk and sank back into the couch.
“You can save me, Dad!”
came her familiar voice.
Something wasn’t right.
The door bell rang.
I considered ignoring it, but then wondered if maybe Susan had dropped by as promised. I rushed upstairs to the front door and opened it, only to find Mrs. Saabe, the elderly white-haired neighbor from across the street.
She stepped in closer. “Stephen, I just heard about Alycia. Oh, you poor dear … you and Donna!”
I opened my arms and allowed her to hug me.
“What a wonderful girl she was,” she said, sadly. “What a terrible tragedy!”
I nodded into her shoulder and released her, but she held on to my arm.
“If you need anything, you let me know,” she said. “I’m just across the street.”
I forced a smile. “That’s very kind of you.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Perhaps later?”
“Good!” She finally released my arm. “I’ll go fix you something.”
“Uh, thanks, that would be nice,” I said.
She trotted back across the street. I watched her for a moment, and then it hit me.
White roses
.
Impossible,
I thought.
I descended the steps again, nearly bumping my head on the stairwell ceiling. In my office, I placed the photo under the light, and studied the tiny corsages.
White.
I blinked rapidly, clearing my vision, and pushed my nose to within centimeters of the photo. No question about it. The corsages were white miniature roses. Could they have lost color with age? But the rest of the photo, including the girls’ gowns, was color perfect.
You ran out of time, remember?
“That was just a dream,” I whispered. “That’s not what really happened.”
Look at the photo, ol’ sport. You never gave her the blue rose. You ran out of time. You even forgot which flower store. You went to Petal Pushin’ instead
.
“That was a dream,” I whispered again.
The cell phone was lying on the couch. Donna would remember for sure.
No,
I thought.
I can’t call her about this
.
Ignoring my better judgment, I picked up the phone, turned it on, and dialed Sally’s number. A very testy voice said “Hello?” like a question.
“May I speak to Donna?”
“Oh, Stephen…” Sally muttered.
“I won’t say anything to upset her,” I promised.
“
You
will upset her.”
I hesitated and considered a white lie. “I just remembered something she’d want to know.”
“She’s grieving, Stephen! What could she possibly want to know?”
“Please put her on, Sally.”
“No, Stephen,” she said. “And I’m hanging—”
I heard Donna’s voice in the background. A muffled discussion ensued. Donna came on the line. “What is it, Stephen?” Her voice sounded very far away, very tired.
“I need to ask you something.”
“I told you she was fragile, Stephen,” she said, her voice breaking. “Do you remember that?”
“Yes…”
“I warned you, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
She choked a sob. “What can you possibly say to me now?”
I knew she was about to hang up, so I went for broke. “Were the roses blue?”
Silence at first, and then an incredulous: “What?!”
“Was your rose corsage blue?”
Another hesitation. “What are you talking about?”
“The night of the banquet,” I said. “The picture in front of the Clock Tower. Please answer me and I’ll never bother—”
Donna expelled another tortured breath, her voice now breaking. “How can you even be thinking of this?”
“Please, Donna. I’ll never bother you again. Just answer the question—”
Her words were harsh: “Our … daughter … just …
died
.”
“Donna, please—”
“You forgot, Stephen!” she exploded. “Doesn’t that ring a bell? You were late and you forgot. I even paid for the corsages! How could this possibly matter to you now? We just lost our daughter!”
I was stunned into silence.
“Are you satisfied?” Donna said, her voice suddenly reduced to a weeping whisper. “Let it go, please…”
The handset was muffled. “We’re hanging up, Stephen.” It was Sally. “Get some help before you hurt someone else!”
The line went dead. I pressed the off button to the phone. Donna was wrong. The corsages had been blue. Not white. Not
ever
white. Not until the dream. I paced the room.
What does it mean?
I asked myself. But I knew, didn’t I? A white rose meant I could still save Alycia.
The doorbell rang. I went upstairs and opened the door. It was Mrs. Saabe, holding her casserole dish, covered with aluminum foil.
She smiled sadly. “You won’t be alone much longer, will you?”
I shook my head, took the dish from her, and she bade me farewell. “You just call if you need anything.”
I thanked her as politely as I could manage and watched again as she descended my steps. She turned one last time and gave me a kindly wave before crossing the street. I wandered to the kitchen and placed the casserole on the table.
Downstairs, I picked up the photo again and stared at the roses, as if they might have changed back while I wasn’t looking.
What if things like this could happen? What if Paul’s celestial wormholes truly existed? What if people sometimes fell into cosmic rabbit holes? What if folks sometimes had strange dreams that took them into a special kind of past where things could be changed for real?
A glimmer of something eased its way into my skeptical soul. For the last time, I stared at the photo, and I
knew
without a doubt the roses had been blue. I decided to take a giant leap of faith and let the chips fall where they may. As I did this, the moment I decided to believe, that burning, overwhelming grief began to be pushed aside. I was now a father determined to save his daughter.
But how?
I picked up the photo of Alycia. Memories of a happy past came roaring back. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to let them in, fully living each one. “Please God,” I whispered, ignoring the curtain that still seemed as dark and as impenetrable as the day Alice died.
Hours passed as I sat there, reliving our life, waiting to fall asleep, waiting for one final chance to save my daughter. The last time I glimpsed the clock, it was after four o’clock in the morning. By the character of the dark beyond my window, I could tell dawn was near. My eyes were slowly drooping closed. My conscious thoughts mingled inexorably with unconscious memories. I fought the loss of awareness, determined to awaken within my dreams.
Eventually, I must have slipped away …
… and awakened to the scent of vanilla mingled with pizza. It was like waking up at the bottom of the ocean, within the murky darkness, struggling for the surface. I fought the impulse to slip back into the dream, fighting for the surface of my consciousness, determined against all odds not to let it slip away, and then…
… I opened my eyes and looked around, expecting to see the framed posters in my downstairs office, but instead … I saw a roomful of young people sitting at booths. The radio was playing in the background, and I recognized the tune.
It took a few moments to put it together. Obviously, I wasn’t in Aberdeen anymore. I was back east in college, sitting in the Soda Straw. I was awake and yet dreaming.