Still Alice (25 page)

For a stretched-out second, Alice paused and made eye contact with a woman. She was sure she didn’t know the woman, but there was meaning in the exchange. The woman had blond hair, a phone by her ear, and glasses over her big, blue, startled eyes. The woman was driving in a car.

Then, Alice’s hood pulled suddenly tight around her throat, and she was jerked backward. She landed hard and unsuspecting on her back and banged her head on the ground. Her costume and plush hat offered little protection against the pavement.

“I’m sorry, Ali, are you okay?” asked a man in a dark pink robe, kneeling beside her.

“No,” she said, sitting up and rubbing the back of her head. She expected to see blood on her hand but didn’t.

“I’m sorry, you walked right into the street. That car almost hit you.”

“Is she okay?”

It was the woman from the car, her eyes still big and startled.

“I think so,” said the man.

“Oh my god, I could’ve killed her. If you didn’t pull her out of the way, I might’ve killed her.”

“It’s okay, you didn’t kill her, I think she’s okay.”

The man helped Alice stand. He felt and looked at her head.

“I think you’re all right. You’re probably going to be really sore. Can you walk?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Can I give you a ride somewhere?” asked the woman.

“No, no, that’s all right, we’re fine,” said the man.

He put his arm around Alice’s waist and his hand under her elbow, and she walked home with the kind stranger who had saved her life.

A
lice sat in a big, comfortable, white chair and puzzled over the clock on the wall. It was the kind with hands and numbers, which was much harder to read than the kind with just numbers.
Five maybe?

“What time is it?” she asked the man sitting in the other big, white chair.

He looked at his wrist.

“Almost three thirty.”

“I think it’s time for me to go home.”

“You are home. This is your home on the Cape.”

She looked around the room—the white furniture, the
pictures of lighthouses and beaches on the walls, the giant windows, the spindly little trees outside the windows.

“No, this isn’t my house. I don’t live here. I want to go home now.”

“We’re going back to Cambridge in a couple of weeks. We’re here on vacation. You like it here.”

The man in the chair continued reading his book and drinking his drink. The book was thick and the drink was yellowish brown, like the color of her eyes, with ice in it. He was enjoying and absorbed in both, the book and the drink.

The white furniture, the pictures of lighthouses and beaches on the walls, the giant windows, and the spindly little trees outside the windows didn’t look at all familiar to her. The sounds here weren’t familiar to her either. She heard birds, the kinds that live at the ocean, the sound of the ice swirling and clinking in the glass when the man in the chair drank his drink, the sound of the man breathing through his nose as he read his book, and the ticking of the clock.

“I think I’ve been here long enough. I’d like to go home now.”

“You are home. This is your vacation home. This is where we come to relax and unwind.”

This place didn’t look like her home or sound like her home, and she didn’t feel relaxed. The man reading and drinking in the big, white chair didn’t know what he was talking about. Maybe he was drunk.

The man breathed and read and drank, and the clock ticked. Alice sat in the big, white chair and listened to the time go by, wishing someone would take her home.

S
HE SAT IN ONE OF
the white, wooden chairs on a deck drinking iced tea and listening to the shrill cross talk of unseen frogs and twilight bugs.

“Hey, Alice, I found your butterfly necklace,” said the man who owned the house.

He dangled a jeweled butterfly by a silver chain in front of her.

“That’s not my necklace, that’s my mother’s. And it’s special, so you’d better put it back, we’re not supposed to play with it.”

“I talked to your mom, and she said that you could have it. She’s giving it to you.”

She studied his eyes and mouth and body language, looking for some sign that would give away his motive. But before she could get a proper read on his sincerity, the beauty of the sparkling blue butterfly seduced her, overriding her rule-abiding concerns.

“She said I could have it?”

“Uh-huh.”

He leaned over her from behind and fastened it around her neck. She ran her fingers over the blue gems on the wings, the silver body, and the diamond-studded antennae. She felt a smug thrill rush through her.
Anne’s going to be so jealous.

S
HE SAT ON THE FLOOR
in front of the full-length mirror in the bedroom she slept in and examined her reflection. The girl in the mirror had sunken, darkened circles under her eyes. Her skin looked loose and spotty all over and wrinkled at the corners of her eyes and along her forehead. Her thick, scraggly eyebrows needed to be tweezed. Her curly hair was
mostly black, but it was also noticeably gray. The girl in the mirror looked ugly and old.

She ran her fingers over her cheeks and forehead, feeling her face on her fingers and her fingers on her face.
That can’t be me. What’s wrong with my face?
The girl in the mirror sickened her.

She found the bathroom and flicked on the light. She met the same image in the mirror over the sink. There were her golden brown eyes, her serious nose, her heart-shaped lips, but everything else, the composition around her features, was grotesquely wrong. She ran her fingers over the smooth, cool glass.
What’s wrong with these mirrors?

The bathroom didn’t smell right either. Two shiny, white step stools, a brush, and a bucket sat on sheets of newspaper on the floor behind her. She squatted down and breathed in through her serious nose. She pried the lid off the bucket, dipped the brush in, and watched creamy white paint dribble down.

She started with the ones she knew were defective, the one in the bathroom and the one in the bedroom she slept in. She found four more before she was finished and painted them all white.

S
HE SAT IN A BIG,
white chair, and the man who owned the house sat in the other one. The man who owned the house was reading a book and drinking a drink. The book was thick and the drink was yellowish brown with ice in it.

She picked up an even thicker book than the one the man was reading from the coffee table and thumbed through it. Her eyes paused on diagrams of words and letters connected to other words and letters by arrows, dashes, and little lolli
pops. She landed on individual words as she browsed through the pages—disinhibition, phosphorylation, genes, acetylcholine, priming, transience, demons, morphemes, phonological.

“I think I’ve read this book before,” said Alice.

The man looked over at the book she held and then at her.

“You’ve done more than that. You wrote it. You and I wrote that book together.”

Hesitant to take him at his word, she closed the book and read the shiny blue cover.
From Molecules to Mind
by John Howland, Ph.D. and Alice Howland, Ph.D. She looked up at the man in the chair.
He’s John.
She flipped to the front pages. “Table of Contents. Mood and Emotion, Motivation, Arousal and Attention, Memory, Language.”
Language.

She opened the book to somewhere near the end. “An infinite possibility of expression, learned yet instinctive, semanticity, syntax, case grammar, irregular verbs, effortless and automatic, universal.” The words she read seemed to push past the choking weeds and sludge in her mind to a place that was pristine and still intact, hanging on.

“John,” she said.

“Yes.”

He put his book down and sat up straight at the edge of his big, white chair.

“I wrote this book with you,” she said.

“Yes.”

“I remember. I remember you. I remember I used to be very smart.”

“Yes, you were, you were the smartest person I’ve ever known.”

This thick book with the shiny blue cover represented so
much of what she used to be.
I used to know how the mind handled language, and I could communicate what I knew. I used to be someone who knew a lot. No one asks for my opinion or advice anymore. I miss that. I used to be curious and independent and confident. I miss being sure of things. There’s no peace in being unsure of everything all the time. I miss doing everything easily. I miss being a part of what’s happening. I miss feeling wanted. I miss my life and my family. I loved my life and family.

She wanted to tell him everything she remembered and thought, but she couldn’t send all those memories and thoughts, composed of so many words, phrases, and sentences, past the choking weeds and sludge into audible sound. She boiled it down and put all her effort into what was most essential. The rest would have to remain in the pristine place, hanging on.

“I miss myself.”

“I miss you, too, Ali, so much.”

“I never planned to get like this.”

“I know.”

J
ohn sat at the end of a long table and took a large sip from his black coffee. It tasted extremely strong and bitter, but he didn’t care. He didn’t drink it for its taste. He’d drink it faster if he could, but it was scalding hot. He’d need two or three more large cups before he’d become fully alert and functional.

Most of the people who came in bought their caffeine to go and hurried on their way. John didn’t have lab meeting for another hour, and he felt no compelling pressure to get to his office early today. He was content to take his time, eat his cinnamon scone, drink his coffee, and read the
New York Times.

He opened to the “Health” section first, as he’d done with every newspaper he’d read for over a year now, a habit that
had long ago replaced most of the hope that originally inspired the behavior. He read the first article on the page and cried openly as his coffee cooled.

A
lice sat on a bench with the woman and watched the children walking by them. Not really children. They weren’t the kind of small children who lived at home with their mothers. What were they? Medium children.

She studied the faces of the medium children as they walked. Serious, busy. Heavy-headed. Headed on their way somewhere. There were other benches nearby, but none of the medium children stopped to sit. Everyone walked, busy on their way to where they must go.

She didn’t need to go anywhere. She felt lucky about this. She and the woman she sat with listened to the girl with very long hair play her music and sing. The girl had a lovely voice
and big, happy teeth and a lot of skirt with flowers all over it that Alice admired.

Alice hummed along to the music. She liked the sound of her hum blended with the voice of the singing girl.

“Okay, Alice, Lydia will be home any minute. You want to pay Sonya before we go?” asked the woman.

The woman was standing, smiling, and holding money. Alice felt invited to join her. She got up, and the woman handed her the money. Alice dropped it in the black hat on the brick ground by the singing girl’s feet. The singing girl kept playing her music but stopped singing for a moment to talk to them.

“Thanks, Alice, thanks, Carole, see you soon!”

As Alice walked with the woman among the medium children, the music became quieter behind them. Alice didn’t really want to leave, but the woman was going, and Alice knew she should stay with her. The woman was cheerful and kind and always knew what to do, which Alice appreciated because she often didn’t.

After walking for some time, Alice spotted the red clown car and the big nail polish car parked in the driveway.

“They’re both here,” said the woman, seeing the same cars.

Alice felt excited and hurried into the house. The mother was in the hallway.

“My meeting ended quicker than I thought it would so I came back. Thanks for filling in,” said the mother.

“No problem. I stripped her bed but didn’t have a chance to remake it. Everything’s still in the dryer,” said the woman.

“Okay, thanks, I’ll get it.”

“She had another good day.”

“No wandering?”

“Nope. She’s my trusty shadow now. My partner in crime. Right, Alice?”

The woman smiled, nodding enthusiastically. Alice smiled and nodded back. She had no idea what she was agreeing to, but it was probably fine with her if the woman thought so.

The woman began collecting books and bags by the front door.

“Is John coming up tomorrow?” asked the woman.

A baby they couldn’t see started crying, and the mother disappeared into another room.

“No, but we’ve got it covered,” said the mother’s voice.

The mother came back carrying a baby dressed in blue, kissing him repeatedly on the neck. The baby still cried, but his heart really wasn’t in it anymore. The mother’s fast kisses were working. The mother plugged a sucking thing into the baby’s mouth.

“You’re okay, little goose. Thanks, Carole, so much. You’re a godsend. Have a great weekend, see you Monday.”

“See you Monday. Bye, Lydia!” the woman yelled.

“Bye, thanks, Carole!” a voice yelled from somewhere in the house.

The baby’s big, round eyes met Alice’s, and he smiled in recognition behind his sucking thing. Alice smiled back, and the baby responded with a wide-mouthed laugh. The sucking thing fell to the floor. The mother squatted down and picked it up.

“Mom, you want to hold him for me?”

The mother passed the baby to Alice, and he slid comfortably into her arms and on her hip. He began pawing at her face with one of his wet hands. He liked doing this, and Alice liked letting him. He grabbed her bottom lip. She pretended to bite it and eat it while making wild animal noises.
He laughed and moved on to her nose. She sniffed and sniffed and pretended to sneeze. He moved up to her eyes. She squinted so she wouldn’t get poked and blinked to try to tickle his hand with her eyelashes. He moved his hand up her forehead to her hair, tightened his little fist, and pulled. She gently unclenched his hand and replaced her hair with her index finger. He found her necklace.

“See the pretty butterfly?”

“Don’t let him put that in his mouth!” called the mother, who was in another room but within eyeshot.

Alice wasn’t about to let the baby mouth her necklace, and she felt wrongly accused. She walked into the room where the mother was. It was crowded with all kinds of birthday party–colored baby-seat things that beeped and buzzed and talked when the babies banged on them. Alice had forgotten that this was the room with all the loud seats. She wanted to leave before the mother suggested she put the baby in one of them. But the actress was in here, too, and Alice wanted to be in their company.

“Is Dad coming this weekend?” asked the actress.

“No, he can’t, he said next week. Can I leave them with you and Mom for a little while? I need to go to the store. Allison should sleep another hour.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll be quick. Need anything?” the mother asked as she walked out of the room.

“More ice cream, something chocolate!” yelled the actress.

Alice found a soft toy with no noisy buttons and sat down while the baby explored it in her lap. She smelled the top of his almost-bald head and watched the actress read. The actress looked up at her.

“Hey, Mom, will you listen to me do this monologue I’m working on for class and tell me what you think it’s about? Not the story, it’s kind of long. You don’t have to remember the words, just tell me what you think it’s about emotionally. When I’m done, tell me how I made you feel, okay?”

Alice nodded, and the actress began. Alice watched and listened and focused beyond the words the actress spoke. She saw her eyes become desperate, searching, pleading for truth. She saw them land softly and gratefully on it. Her voice felt at first tentative and scared. Slowly, and without getting louder, it grew more confident and then joyful, playing sometimes like a song. Her eyebrows and shoulders and hands softened and opened, asking for acceptance and offering forgiveness. Her voice and body created an energy that filled Alice and moved her to tears. She squeezed the beautiful baby in her lap and kissed his sweet-smelling head.

The actress stopped and came back into herself. She looked at Alice and waited.

“Okay, what do you feel?”

“I feel love. It’s about love.”

The actress squealed, rushed over to Alice, kissed her on the cheek, and smiled, every crease of her face delighted.

“Did I get it right?” asked Alice.

“You did, Mom. You got it exactly right.”