Alice Bliss - Laura Harrington [55]
“You’re making dinner?”
“Don’t look so surprised.”
“And you expect us to do homework?”
“Yes.”
“Are you serious? It’s Friday night.”
“Homework tonight and work and school on Monday.”
Ellie obediently gets her backpack and sits at the dining room table. Alice joins her reluctantly, pulls out her planner, opens it, but when she tries to look up today’s assignments she has trouble focusing. She finds a pen and opens a notebook so she’ll look busy and then just sits there as Ellie actually completes her grammar worksheets and moves on to writing a story about honeybees.
“You’re ploitering,” Ellie announces.
“I’m what?”
“Ploitering. ‘Working to little purpose.’ ”
“Loiter with a p in front of it?”
“Yup.”
“You made that up.”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure?”
“Honeybees never ploiter.”
“Are you working that into your story?”
“Extra credit vocabulary words.”
“What do you need extra credit for? You already get all A’s.”
“A plus is possible. A plus is within my reach.”
“Are you illustrating your story?”
“Of course.”
“Hey, maybe you could have one honeybee who ploiters. A renegade. It could add to the drama.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Ellie never incorporates Alice’s suggestions into her stories. Ever.
Alice shifts her chair so she can watch her mom in the kitchen, an apron over her dress, going through the motions of making dinner. Shortly afterward, they all go through the motions of eating dinner, washing dishes, giving Ellie her bath, and finally going to bed.
After tossing and turning for what feels like forever, Alice gets up to go downstairs. She wishes she could go for a run. She wishes it were Monday so she could go to the computer lab at school to Google Earth Falluja’s streets and houses and, hopefully, find aerial views of rooftops.
She’s surprised to find her mom in the kitchen making tea with honey and rum. Angie looks up.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Angie says.
“Me neither.”
“You want some?”
“You’re offering me rum?”
“A teaspoon in some tea.”
“Sure.”
“It’ll help you sleep.”
Angie gets another mug from the cupboard, pours a second cup of tea.
“Have you told Gram?”
“Tomorrow. Let her have one more good night’s sleep.”
“And Uncle Eddie?”
“Same.”
She adds honey and a small splash of rum.
“I think if I talk about it, if I tell people, that will make it real,” Alice says. “Right now, my mind knows it’s real, but no other part of me can really . . .”
“That’s shock, honey. That’s how the body protects us. We can only take it in a little at a time.”
“I don’t want to take it in.”
“I know.”
Angie hands Alice her tea.
“Careful—it’s hot.”
“I need more honey.”
“Help yourself.”
Alice adds a lot more honey.
“It’s pretty good.”
“Gram used to make this for me when I had a cold.”
“When you were little?”
“Not that little.”
Alice gathers her courage.
“Mom . . .”
Angie doesn’t answer. She looks away.
“I need to know.”
“Let’s just drink our tea and slow our minds way, way down so we can get some sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow. Okay, Alice? Tomorrow.”
And Alice thinks wounded and Alice thinks captured and Alice thinks torture. She sips her tea and feels the slow seep of warmth spreading through her limbs. She feels her body slowing down even while her mind is still racing.
Angie looks at Alice, watches her get lost in her thoughts, sees her chapped lips and her tangled hair and the ancient Grateful Dead T-shirt of Matt’s that she wears to bed. It’s so old the jersey is disintegrating away from the seams.
“C’mon, honey. Let’s go to bed.”
Angie puts her arm around Alice’s waist. She can feel ribs under her fingers and Alice’s cool, smooth skin. Alice lets herself be held, almost, for a brief second, before pulling away.
They walk upstairs, one behind the other now, each carrying her mug of tea like a lantern in the dark.
April 24th
Alice sits in school on Monday and closes her eyes and tries to feel whether her father is still alive. Does the body know before the mind does? Can she feel the connection she has always felt or has it snapped? She wants to know where he was wounded, how badly, could he