Alice Bliss - Laura Harrington [96]
She looks at her family in the receiving line. For the first time she notices what a small group they are. Matt’s parents are dead and buried ten years or more. His brother, Mark, who works for the Congo Basin Forest Partnership with U.S. AID, is on site in the rain forest. They don’t know if their telegram has reached him. So there’s only Angie and Gram and Uncle Eddie and Alice and Ellie to wake and bury Matt. And now she’s remembering her great aunt Beryl on the phone from the nursing home, “It’s a good thing your Grammy and Grampy didn’t live to see this.”
Ellie is standing next to Angie now. In her favorite spring green dress, her new haircut, and her new glasses, she is kind and polite and efficient; she is a miniature mom. How can she do that? Is she pretending, playing a part, so she won’t feel anything?
Here is Lillian Balfour, just arrived from San Francisco, her mom’s best friend. Behind her in the line are the Hoyts, her parents’ close friends from the old neighborhood, and oh, God, there’s Johnny Mason, Matt’s oldest friend, the fancy lawyer all the way up from Virginia, with his wife and his three little kids. And Mr. and Mrs. Holscher. This is too much, Alice thinks; this is unreal.
She can’t believe it. Stephie Larson and her parents are in line behind the Holschers. Stephie has her head down, and she is crying so hard her dad has to put his arm around her to steady her. He says something to her and she looks up and sees Alice. She lifts her hand in a wave. Alice tries to smile but can’t tell if she actually does or not; it feels like her face is frozen.
Lillian walks right up and puts her arms around Angie, Lillian with her red hair and artsy clothes, and Angie is losing it, Alice can see it from here. Her mother’s face has gone bright and blotchy and she is fighting back tears. Only with Lillian here, she can’t win this fight, with Lillian here, she can no longer pretend she is just going through the motions, or it’s all a bad dream, or somehow, somehow she will wake up tomorrow and find Matt peacefully asleep beside her. All of these people, these caring, lovely people, each one like a hammer blow, each one striking a gong, ringing a bell: he’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone.
Uncle Eddie stands in front of Angie, shielding her from the people waiting in line, giving her a moment to collect herself. He pulls a flask from his back pocket and hands it to her. Both Lillian and Angie drink from it, Lillian even manages to giggle and snort the way she usually does before Eddie takes a good long pull and they are back in business. Lillian positions herself just behind Ellie, one hand on Ellie’s shoulder, one hand on Angie’s shoulder. Not in the way, not obtrusive, but there, solidly there beside her friend.
Henry is in front of the coffin now, Alice notices with a start. Henry and his mother and his father. Henry is kneeling for a long time; she can see Mrs. Grover urge him to his feet, but not before Henry places something in the coffin. He can’t look up as he goes through the receiving line. He shuffles and shakes hands and hangs his head. He makes his way to a chair in the back of the room with his parents. He is trying to compose himself before he speaks to Alice, and he is having a mighty hard time of it; nothing he can say to himself can change the unalterable facts of this day.
“That’s my best friend,” she tells Mrs. Piantowski.
“Henry Grover, yes?”
“Can I show him baby Inga? Can I let him hold her?”
“Yes, you can.”
Alice crosses to Henry and nods to Mr. and Mrs. Grover, who make room for her to sit across from him. Henry is looking at his hands and weeping. He hasn’t cried like this in years. He feels the fool, the total fool, but he can’t stop. He is undone by Alice’s father lying in the coffin. All of his magical thinking, that somehow this could all come right; all of his hopes and wishes for Alice, for her family, all undone by the simple fact of the