Alice Bliss - Laura Harrington [114]
Ellie has also made a mini dictionary of long words. She cut and stapled the pages and then copied out all of her favorites. She does not yet have a superlong word for every single letter of the alphabet, but almost.
“Guess what?” Ellie says one afternoon in the workshop.
“What?”
“I want to be a neologist when I grow up.”
“What’s that?” Henry asks.
“Someone who makes up new words.”
“Perfect.”
June 21st
They are driving to Maine: Alice, Angie, Ellie, Uncle Eddie, and Gram. The boats are packed in a box in the trunk. Alice wanted Henry to be with them, but had to concede the point of “family only,” and being too squashed in the car. She asked each of them to bring a memento for Matt, something small enough to fit in the palm of their hand. She suspects that Ellie may have spilled the beans to Gram about the boats, but that’s okay.
Courtesy of Uncle Eddie, they are in a 1982 pale yellow Cadillac convertible. The seats are so comfy it’s hard to stay awake. Gram packed lunch and dinner in a cooler. They’ll spend the night in a bed and breakfast because Mom says Gram’s too old to camp.
They left at noon, stopped once in Massachusetts, and shortly after sunset they make the turn down the Phippsburg peninsula heading to Small Point. The minute they make the turn, Alice makes them roll down all the windows. She closes her eyes and breathes in the salt water, the bracken and the piney smells. She leans her forehead against the back of Uncle Eddie’s seat.
And Matt is alive in front of her, he is driving and she is in the backseat with her forehead resting against him, like this, just like this. She remembers the murmur of her parents’ voices in the dark car, Ellie curled up asleep on the seat beside her, Matt with one hand on the wheel and one hand lightly twined in the hair at the nape of Angie’s neck. And Alice, part of it, part of that feeling, by a thread, by her forehead just touching his shoulder.
It is twilight. It is the solstice. It is a clear, calm night.
“Can I drive?” she asks.
“What?”
“I want to drive the rest of the way.”
Uncle Eddie pulls over. Alice slides into the driver’s seat; Mom takes her place in the back and pulls Ellie onto her lap so Uncle Eddie can sit beside Alice.
Alice drives the curving two-lane road slowly, ticking off each landmark as they pass: the turn-offs to the state park, to Secret Beach; Sebasco, with the snack bar that makes the best lobster rolls in Maine; the general store, the granite house, the house with two white barns. She makes the turn onto the causeway to Hermit Island, drives past the Kelp Shed, and carefully maneuvers the sharp turn up the single-track dirt lane leading to the beaches, the Devil’s Bathtub, and the campsites beyond. It’s midweek; the campground is not even half full. Alice parks next to a picnic table.
They pile out of the car, pull on sweaters, and head down to the beach with the picnic basket, a ground tarp, and some blankets. Alice, Ellie, and Uncle Eddie scrounge the beach and the dunes for wood to make a fire. They roast hot dogs, eat Gram’s famous potato salad and cherry pie, and wait for full dark.
Clambering up the rocks, Alice stops at the top. The sky is thick with stars, just as she imagined it would be, there is a sliver of a moon low in the sky, and the Devil’s Bathtub is nearly full as the tide reaches its peak. She finds a flat rock to use as a staging area for the boats. She has brought scraps of kindling and paper and matches. Uncle Eddie has his arm around Gram and is guiding her with a flashlight. Mom and Ellie are holding hands.
Alice sets the cardboard