Alice Bliss - Laura Harrington [116]
Angie kneels beside her little boat. She has a letter in her hands from their college days when they thought they would live forever. She found the letter in her lingerie drawer, jumbled in with the girls’ letters to Santa and handmade anniversary and birthday cards. She has read it so many times in the past few days she could recite it by heart.
She thinks, I will always love you, Matt. She closes her eyes and wishes it were last summer, before any of this had happened, she wishes and wishes and wishes that she could have him back. When she opens her eyes she realizes she doesn’t want to let any single bit of him go, not this letter, not this night, not this beautiful boat. She looks at Alice, who is waiting patiently. She looks at the boat again. Bliss. How perfect. Matt Bliss, she thinks, you should be here for this, you should see your daughter now. She folds the letter and slips it into the boat.
Alice has a small envelope in one hand and a sand dollar the size of a dime in the other.
“This is some dirt from our garden and one of the tiniest sand dollars we ever found together right here on this beach. I hope there are tomatoes in heaven, Dad. I hope you can see our boats on the water tonight. We’re lighting them up just for you.”
Alice pours the earth into the hull of Jillick and places the sand dollar on top.
Alice and Ellie carefully lay their tinder and their scraps of paper on each boat. One by one they light them on fire and launch them into the water. The boats wobble a bit when they enter the water, and Alice has a moment of panic before they steady themselves. They cluster together at first, floating like a small regatta, magically aflame.
Angie takes Ellie’s hand and watches Alice, still kneeling where they launched their fleet at the narrow, closed end of the Devil’s Bathtub. The tide is turning now, pulling the boats out to sea, where they begin to fan out a bit, each one responding to the current and the wind and the tide. Bibliobibuli and Bliss are in the lead, it’s almost as if their sails actually work, followed by Penny. Tupelo Honey wallows along bringing up the rear. Jillick and Fernticle are in the middle, their decks burning brightest of all until the sails on Bibliobibuli and Bliss catch fire in a spectacular burst of light.
Angie wants to call them all back, or she wants them to stay just as they are. Uncle Eddie is in the unaccustomed position of having a slow-motion method of transport and finds himself wishing his boat would hurry it up. Ellie is thinking that maybe she shouldn’t have burned the dictionary she worked so long to make. Alice is looking at the burning boats and wondering if it is at all possible that they will make it out to open ocean before they sink; and wondering at the same time, if it is possible that any of this, the boats, the flames bright in the darkness, could reach her father? Can anything she will do or say for the rest of her life reach her father?
She looks back over her shoulder at her mother, Ellie, Uncle Eddie, Gram, and they are all caught and held in this moment. All their hopes and their wishes launched on fragile boats, lit on fire and shining like stars in an upside-down sky. Stars floating on the water. Just for a moment, a moment longer. Here. And then gone.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With thanks to:
* David and Kate, for everything, always.
* The Kleban Foundation for giving me two years to write.
* Paulette Haupt, commissioner and producer of Alice Unwrapped, the musical that inspired Alice Bliss; Jenny Giering, composer for Alice Unwrapped for the magic of her music and for making Alice sing.
* Rachel Kadish, Ann Ziergiebel, Angela Marvin, Jane Potter, Lillian Hsu, Kim Garcia, Liza Rutherford, and Lynn Barclay, my first readers.
* Melanie Kroupa, for seeing the potential.
* Carol Green for giving me space to write, and so much more, in Truro.
* Beth