What Alice Forgot - Liane Moriarty [46]
She put a tentative hand to the tender lump on her head. The pain was still there, but it was definitely better, more like a memory of yesterday’s pain.
But she didn’t remember those children, and she didn’t remember Nick moving out.
She slid her bare feet onto the cool floor and looked around her. The tulips her mother had given her were fat, gold bulbs against the white of the hospital room wall. She tried to imagine her mother dancing the salsa with Roger, their hips swiveling in unison. She could imagine Roger’s hips swiveling all right, but Mum’s? She was fascinated and repelled by the thought. She couldn’t wait to talk to Nick about it.
Well.
She remembered his voice on the phone yesterday, thick with hatred. It had to be over something more than bad breath. If that had been the reason, he would have sounded compassionate and embarrassed.
Even with the memory of that phone call (the way he swore at her!), it still seemed impossible that Nick wasn’t about to turn up any minute, breathless and rumpled, apologizing for the misunderstanding, hugging her to his chest. She couldn’t feel properly upset about this talk of divorce because it was too stupid. This was Nick! Her Nick. As soon as she saw him again it would all be okay.
The rucksack with the dinosaur stickers was sitting in the cupboard next to her bed. She thought about that beautiful red dress; maybe she could squeeze into it.
She held the rucksack under one arm and prudishly clutched the hospital robe together behind her in one hand so as not to reveal her underpants, but there was no need. The curtains around the other girl’s bed were pulled and she was still snoring her mosquito-whine snore.
Maybe as Alice had got older her snoring had got even worse and that’s why Nick had left. She could get one of those horrible mouthguard things. That was easy to solve. Come on home, Nick.
She was so tired it felt like she was walking through wet concrete.
I think I should get back into bed.
Don’t you dare get back into bed. You’ll make them late for school again and you’ll never hear the end of it.
Alice’s chin jerked up with surprise. Where did that come from? She thought of the photo of the three children in their school uniforms. It must be Alice’s responsibility to get them to school on time each day.
Maybe, just maybe, there was the tiniest, fleeting, corner-of-the-eye memory of pounding footsteps down a hallway, doors slamming, a horn tooting, a child wailing, a drilling feeling right in the center of her forehead. But as soon as she tried to grab hold of it, it vanished, as if she’d made it up.
It felt like she was facing straight ahead but just to the left and right of her were ten years’ worth of memories, if only she could find a way to just turn her head to face them.
She went into the small bathroom that she and the snoring girl shared, switched on the fluorescent light, and locked the door behind her. She blinked in the all-enveloping brightness. Last night she’d managed to use the toilet and wash her hands without looking at her reflection in the mirror above the sink. There would be no more of that. Today was the day for clean, crisp action.
She undid the ties around her neck and back, let the robe fall to the floor, and stepped in front of the mirror.
She could see herself from the waist up.
Skinny, she thought, pressing her fingertips to the curve of her waist and then running them up and down her ribs. She could actually see her ribs. You’re a skinny girl. Her stomach was hard and flat like that girl’s at the gym. How did that happen?
Of course she’d always said that she should get fit and lose weight, without ever actually doing anything about it. It was something you were meant to say to your girlfriends at regular intervals to show you were a proper woman: “Oh God, I’m so fat!” When she was going out with Richard, the boyfriend before Nick, who would say “Heave ’em up!” when he watched her pull up her jeans over her thighs, that slight dissatisfaction with her body occasionally turned