Alice Bliss - Laura Harrington [38]
Angie tries to think of the last time she really paid attention to the night sky. Tonight, maybe, out at the lake in Eddie’s convertible. But did she really see it? Or was she all caught up, as usual, in talking or arguing or giving Eddie advice he doesn’t want and never heeds? When was the last time she walked beneath the moon, or sang, or danced, or held Matt in her arms under a starlit sky? Here she is, with every freedom and every convenience and she doesn’t have time to notice the moon. And there’s Matt, doing whatever it is he can’t tell her about every day, reveling in the night sky.
My soul lifts up, she thinks. My soul lifts up . . . Where did that phrase come from and why is it popping into her head now? The moon, the sky, the possibility of a soul, the miles, the oceans, Matt, trying not to worry, getting through the days believing he’ll come home, believing he’ll be okay. It’s all a prayer, she realizes, every breath, every day. Come home to me. Come home.
April 17th
They are sitting on the bed in Henry’s bedroom after track practice, ostensibly working on geometry homework. Alice gets up to open the window because Henry’s feet really stink. She can see into the Grovers’ side yard where Mrs. Grover is taking the laundry off the line. There are robins on the greening grass and the forsythia is just beginning to bloom. Alice wants to be outside, she wants to lie down in the grass and forget about geometry and school and no news from her father and a million other things.
Mrs. Grover is singing. To herself, really, kind of under her breath but every other phrase or so drifts up to the window and Alice can hear it. She’s singing that great Bunny Berrigan song, “Can’t Get Started.” The only reason Alice knows this song is because it is a very big song at Henry’s house. Mrs. Grover has one of the original recordings on a scratchy 78 that she loves to play. She actually has a record player and she changes the spindle and puts this record on and sits down and plays it and listens to it, really leans in and listens to it. Alice had never seen anyone listen to music like this, so it was a bit of an event when she was around four and happened to be playing with Henry when his mother took out the old Bunny Berrigan record and put it on. And sat there. And listened.
Here she is, on a spring day, bringing in the wash and singing to herself. Mrs. Grover is no longer young; at least that’s how Alice’s mother would put it, and Alice’s mother would think she was being tactful, not hearing the obvious criticism and condescension in the phrase. Even though Mrs. Grover wears those awful sensible shoes and has gray hair that she wears in a bun, Alice thinks that maybe Mrs. Grover is still young in the ways that are important. Like she’s not so serious all the time, and she sings and right now she’s teasing a cardinal. Whistling in response to its call and damn if that cardinal doesn’t whistle right back. Alice’s mother doesn’t even have a clothesline, let alone stand outside and lift her face to the sun and sing and whistle to the birds.
Henry works away, oblivious, or so Alice thinks. Henry, of course, has another story to tell and not necessarily one he’s ready to tell Alice. For instance, it is impossible to think when Alice is this close to him. The smell of her shampoo, the habit she has of closing her eyes and scratching her nose as she thinks through a math problem, the way he can tell she is miles away from him even though she’s in the same room. She’s finished her homework, as usual, and Henry is left to try to think his way through the problem on