Alice Bliss - Laura Harrington [111]
The World War II vets and the Korean War vets, in their faded uniforms, their numbers dwindling each year, follow the band, walking a bit slowly, some with pinned up sleeves, some with canes. Next come the Vietnam vets wearing bits and pieces of jungle fatigues, some with ponytails, or bald, with pot bellies or green berets. And finally, bringing up the rear, the Iraq veteran’s group in their desert fatigues. People fall silent as they pass. You can hear the hush rolling up the street, the same way you could hear the bands approaching. It’s eerie to hear the crowds go quiet.
As they get closer Alice can see that Mrs. Grover is walking with Ellie and Gram. Ellie walks between them, holding their hands. And there’s Angie with her sign. Mrs. Piantowski steps off the curb to join them, and so does Mrs. Minty, who is carrying a homemade flag over her shoulder that reads PEACE.
Alice surprises herself and walks into the street to join her mother. As if this is what she had planned all along, though in all of the confusion she has been feeling, this is the one thing she was sure she would not do. But here is her mother, carrying a sign with the name of her husband on it, her husband and the father of her children.
There are two other young widows carrying their husband’s names, and a few other Iraq vets and their families. There’s a young man in a wheelchair, missing both legs, another on crutches, another with part of his jaw gone. A smaller group of men and women march under the banner: Veterans Against the War.
At first Alice just walks beside Angie. Henry joins his mother, and he and Mrs. Grover walk right behind them. Alice links arms with her mother, and finally, Angie hands her the sign. Alice carries her father’s name; she holds it high. Angie rests her hand on the small of Alice’s back, and Alice thinks of Matt and the roof and his voice in her ear telling her: You can do it, Alice. She carries her father’s name through the streets of her town, past the houses and yards and faces of her neighbors.
She can hear the band playing up ahead of them. She looks back to get a glimpse of Henry and can see that more and more people have joined them. Not a movement, exactly, but a dozen more people publicly standing with the veterans and their families.
Angie leans over to whisper in Alice’s ear before she puts her arm around her waist and draws her close. They walk in unison, more together than they have been in months, possibly years, until Alice hands Angie the sign and peels off from the group and sprints the few blocks home.
She walks through the house. Past the six black boxes that arrived a week ago and that none of them can bear to unpack. Each pair of socks, each T-shirt, each letter, each photograph is inventoried on twenty sheets of paper. Everything has been washed, so when you breathe in the scent of a shirt, it doesn’t smell like him. Only his pillow, Alice has found, has any trace of his scent. Maybe they don’t know how to wash feather pillows.
It’s strange but there is really nothing left of her father in these boxes, in these sheets and towels and uniforms. These things are not Matt, they are just things.
She heads out to the garden and sets to work picking baby green beans, peas, radishes, greens. The gourds are going crazy, the tendrils of their vines fanning out across the low fence Alice and Matt built last year. Looks like it’s going to be a bumper crop come fall.
It’s quiet in the garden aside from the buzz of insects and the occasional birdsong. She stops for a moment to really listen: she can hear cars on Belknap Road and poplar leaves stirring like soft coins in the breeze. She closes her eyes and listens again. The moments when she hears her father’s voice in her head are less and less frequent as each day passes. Alice wonders if his voice has gone silent and if this silence will last for the rest of her life.
She heads for the workshop, leaving her basket of produce in the shade. Inside, she stands for a moment, trying to find him. She runs her hands over the workbench, feeling