Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [67]
“Can’t you give me some peace?” she’d say, whenever any of them asked for anything.
At bedtime, Kathleen would whisper to her father that she didn’t want to be alone with Alice, but he would only say, “Be my helper when I’m gone, okay? And know that your mother loves you.”
Alice wasn’t always this way. On the nights when she and Daniel went on dates, she would let them eat ice cream before their grandmother arrived to feed them dinner, and give Kathleen permission to brush her silky dark hair. When they had parties, Kathleen and Clare would get paid a dollar each to ferry the coats upstairs to their parents’ bedroom, and they’d be allowed to stay up until ten, giddily running highballs and Canadian Clubs out to guests in the living room from the bar in the kitchen.
On those nights, Alice laughed more.
She seemed happiest of all during summers in Maine, surrounded by their cousins and aunts and uncles. There, she ran along the beach in her bathing suit, her long legs glistening with oil. Sometimes she would get right down on the cottage floor with them and play blocks or dolls.
But at other times, Alice grew cold and unkind. Kathleen was terrified of her mother’s outbursts, her short temper that seemed to spring from nowhere.
They were in the kitchen that afternoon—Kathleen was doing her homework at the table, Clare was running circles around the room, screaming at the top of her lungs.
Sternly, Alice told her to stop.
She had said she had a headache earlier, going up to her room to rest as she often did before their father got home from work. Some days, she drank whiskey. She thought it made her calm, but in fact it turned her angry, sad. Kathleen could smell it on her breath when Alice picked her up from school. She knew enough to be quiet.
It was three o’clock. Alice was unloading groceries. She had let them sit out all morning, so that the milk dripped with condensation, and the lettuce had begun to droop.
Clare kept running, playing Cowboys and Indians all by herself, pushing her palm repeatedly against her lips while she let out a steady stream of sound.
Alice shouted at her to hush up, or else. She had a fierce look in her eye, and Kathleen feared it. She willed her sister to stop. After another minute, her heart racing, Kathleen said, “Clare, come sit with me.”
Clare went right on yelling.
“Be quiet, goddamn it!” Alice yelled, so loud and harsh that Clare began to cry.
Patrick darted toward her with arms outstretched, to comfort her, and tripped over one of the grocery bags. He fell to the floor, hitting his head on a glass apple juice bottle, which broke in two.
A thick bloody inch opened up on his forehead.
Kathleen covered her eyes and shouted, “Oh no!”
“Jesus,” Alice said. She went to him, pulling a tea towel from the counter. She pressed it to his forehead, but the blood soaked through and onto her blouse. “Sweetheart!” she said. “Did you hurt yourself?”
Kathleen spoke softly, scared of what her mother might do, despite her measured tone. “Should I call the ambulance?”
“Don’t be so dramatic, he’s fine,” Alice said.
Patrick moaned.
“Mama,” Kathleen said. “Shouldn’t we take him to the doctor?”
“He needs a bandage and a cookie, that’s all,” Alice said. “And I need a drink. Isn’t that right, sport?”
Patrick didn’t answer.
A half hour passed. The bleeding wouldn’t stop. Their brother sat in Alice’s lap, crying. She held the cloth to his head, and Kathleen and Clare both cried too.
“Quit that, girls, you’ll upset him,” Alice said.
But after a few more minutes, she seemed to wilt. “He’s still bleeding. Oh God, I can’t handle this.”
Alice tried to call their father at the office, but his secretary said he had stepped out.
“Typical,” she said. She seemed weary, and more angry even than usual. “I guess I’ll have to take all of you,” she said, picking