Alice Bliss - Laura Harrington [3]
“But what if—?”
“Don’t you have any faith in me?”
“Of course I do.”
“I’m coming home, Angie.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
It’s quiet for a moment.
“I want letters, you know,” Matt says. “Real letters. With perfume. You can’t carry an e-mail around in your pocket.”
“You’re not so deluded you actually think this is romantic?”
“I do. A little.”
“It won’t be romantic if—”
“Oh, yeah,” he teases her, laughing. “The fallen hero, blah, blah, blah.”
“Matt!”
Alice hears the kitchen chairs scrape across the floor and knows it is time to beat a retreat up the stairs to bed. But she waits another moment, and another. She wants to see her dad one more time tonight.
They walk through the kitchen door. The dining room light is nothing more than a warm glow, illuminating them. Matt pulls Angie to him and kisses her, and kisses her some more.
Alice backs slowly up the stairs, carefully stepping over the creakiest step, third from the top. She puts her freezing cold hands under her armpits to try to warm them as she walks down the hall to her room. She waits to duck inside her door until she hears them on the stairs. Matt has his arm around Angie’s waist and he has even managed to make her laugh. That soft, musical, surrendering laugh Angie saves just for Matt and his beautiful blue eyes.
Alice closes her door as softly as possible and leans against it, hoping they have not heard her. She hears them pass by whispering and giggling like little kids.
Ellie has kicked her covers off as usual. Alice pulls the quilt over Ellie and then climbs into her own bed. She listens to Ellie breathing; she closes her eyes, tight, tight, and tries to breathe through the knot in her chest. She wishes she could call Henry but that would mean waking up Mr. and Mrs. Grover and getting into trouble for calling so late. She wishes they still had their walkie-talkies hooked up. She could ask Henry to leave his on so she could listen to the static and hear him sleeping and breathing the way she did that whole terrible month in fourth grade when her grandfather was dying. What happened to those walkie-talkies she wonders, and what’s Henry doing right now? She’ll ask him tomorrow. If it doesn’t sound too crazy in the cold light of day.
January 31st
Matt is in his workshop puttering around with a cup of forgotten coffee sitting on the windowsill. It’s a cold day with flurries and a gusting wind, so he’s got the woodstove going full blast and he’s wearing his tan work jacket with the ripped pocket. Alice slips in and sits on a wooden crate near the stove. What is she doing here, exactly? Her English homework lies forgotten in her lap. She is, what? Hanging out? Breathing the air? Daydreaming? Making a nuisance of herself?
All of the above? She brought her dad a toasted muffin as a way of interrupting him and then stuck. Like a burr. She is uninvited, she feels awkward; but this is where she has to be even if Matt would rather be alone.
But Matt would not rather be alone. There are things he wants to say to his daughter before he leaves but they all sound so portentous and ominous that he can’t bring himself to begin. There are things she needs to know, things she needs to prepare for, and it’s really not fair to leave all the talking and informing and awkwardness to Angie. So he talks about the garden instead. He pulls out last year’s plan and asks Alice to come over and take a look. She throws another log in the woodstove and joins him at the workbench.
“So I was thinking less corn because there will only be three of you.”
“What about Gram? She can always take the extra.”
“Because that way we could squeeze in another row of yellow beans.”
“Okay.”
“And beets.”
“You’re the only one who likes beets, Dad.”
“Okra?”
“Blech.”
“Broccoli?”
“Two plants at most.”
He notates the changes as they talk.
“You can do peas spring and fall like we did last year.”
“Can we do basil?”
“Sure. And Mom likes arugula.”
“Yeah.”
Suddenly Alice’s hands are clammy and she can’t lift her eyes from the plan.
“You don’t like it,” he says.
“I liked it just fine