The Evolution of Alice (7 page)

“Where’d you find her?” he said.

Understandably, he sounded distrustful.

“Oh, just up the highway,” Edward said, and noticed the man’s interrogative look, so decided to be more specific. “I don’t know, about seven or eight kilometres away?”

“Yeah? That far, eh? And where were you headed?” the man said.

“I was on my way to the cemetery just a little ways from here. You know the one?”

“There’re a lot of cemeteries around here.”

“Look,” Edward said, “I get it. You don’t know me from Adam.”

“That’s right,” the man said, “and that’s our little girl in there.”

“She mentioned an uncle, I guess that’d be you?”

“That’d be me. That’s what they call me, anyway.”

“Okay, I just wanted to help. She was looking pretty lost out there, and, this might sound strange because we’ve established that you don’t know me, but I couldn’t stand thinking of her getting picked up by some creep.”

The man thought about it for a moment. He looked back at the group hug going on inside the trailer then turned back to Edward. He stared at Edward for a long time, as though sizing him up. It made Edward feel a bit sheepish, even though he knew he’d done nothing wrong. In fact, he was sure he’d done just the opposite. He gave the man a half grin and tried to look as trustworthy as possible.

“I’m not a creep,” Edward added for the sake of clarification.

Finally, the man nodded.

“I guess I should thank you for bringing her home, then,” he said. “I couldn’t find her, me. Drove up and down the highway for a while. Must’ve been hidin’ on me or something.”

“I’m happy to help,” Edward said.

“So she was just walking down the highway?” the man said.

“Yeah, she was walking down the highway. Uhhh, said she was headed to Alaska?”

“Alaska, eh?”

“Yeah, she thought she could go back in time. Time zones, you know. Kids sometimes get confused by them.”

At that, the man shook his head. Edward could see the same sadness on the man he’d seen on Kathy.

“God damn it,” the man said. “Ain’t that the thing.”

“Why’d she want to do that? Go back in time?”

“Few weeks back, her little sister got run over and killed, right here in the driveway. Just like that.”

“That’s awful,” Edward said.

“Yeah, it’s been pretty awful. Been hard on her, you know. Hard on the whole family,” the man said.

“They ever find out who did it? Who ran her over?” Edward said.

“Nah,” the man said, “and I don’t think they’re gonna neither. All we know is that the car had four wheels.”

“That must make things harder.”

“Maybe it did at first, but now I think we’re all just trying to heal, you know? Trying not to think about that shit.”

“I don’t think I’d get over that,” Edward said. “Not knowing.”

“Well, none of that’s gonna bring her back. You just gotta keep living as best you can without her, and hope she’s somewhere better than here.”

Less than half an hour later, Edward pulled off the highway into a side road leading up to the cemetery. He parked in front of an old-fashioned white church, complete with a roof shaped like a triangle and a steeple at the front that thrust a small white cross into the heavens. It looked under-used, or even abandoned, judging by the long grass growing up against the cracked steps leading to the front door, which was hanging precariously by one hinge. Still, the church was a pretty little thing and gave off a certain aura particular to churches, whether you believed in what they were built for or not.

A delicate fence enclosed the cemetery. It was composed of wood posts and wire and a small metal gate Edward pushed open to enter. Since he’d been there last, there were no new residents at the place—still only Jeff’s headstone, which was nearest to the gate, and another, older, headstone near the back corner, the two almost as far away from each other as you could get. They weren’t exactly keeping each other company. In the opposite corner to the other headstone, there was a large pine tree, the only mature tree on the lot, which, Edward learned during Jeff’s burial, had been planted by Jeff himself years earlier. At either side of Jeff’s headstone there were two saplings that would one day mature and become tall pine trees, like guards standing over him. Nicky and her grandma, who had planted the new trees, would be pleased to know they were growing fine.

Over the next several minutes Edward spent time snapping pictures of everything in front of him; the church, the mature pine tree, the fence, Jeff’s headstone, and, of course, the two saplings (which enjoyed the bulk of Edward’s attention, posing nicely like two models). All told, he took about 50 pictures and, after scanning through them, was quite proud of the quality. He decided some of the pictures might look nice hanging on a wall.

After putting the camera away, Edward went and stood beside Jeff’s headstone. He didn’t say anything. He was certain people often said lovely things when visiting headstones, but, truthfully, he thought doing so felt a bit silly. He thought if Jeff was anywhere, he certainly wasn’t in the cemetery, even though it was a nice, peaceful location, much more appealing than Edward had originally thought for a final resting place. All he did, in the end, was silently wish that Jeff continued to be in a place where he was safe and secure, just where Jeff had hoped everybody should be. He thought of Kathy in that moment, too, and wished the same thing for her, and the little sister she had lost. He imagined Kathy in a cemetery somewhere, standing in front of her little sister’s headstone. He never found out how young the little girl was. Edward took a deep breath and tried to fight back a tear that had welled up in his eye. At least, he thought, Jeff had lived a relatively long life, far longer than that little girl. He thought about what he’d said to Kathy, that she should focus on the good things. He hoped she could do that. God knew it was hard enough for a grown man.

Soon, he was travelling back down Highway 57, his music playing through the car’s speakers and the cruise control set to a reasonable 105 km/h. He picked up his ham sandwich and considered taking a bite. It was, after all, well past lunch.

Gideon stood with Kathy and Jayne at the front of the community hall. They needed to have the funeral in there because almost the whole rez had shown up and the church wasn’t big enough. All the people were sitting quietly behind Gideon and the girls, and the only sounds were the odd sniffling and baby crying. Alice was behind them too, sitting there with three empty chairs beside her. Gideon had tried to convince her to come up with them, but she wouldn’t. She said it was too hard. She said that, the last time she’d seen Grace, her little baby was beautiful, smiling and alive. At no point had she asked to see Grace’s body, and Gideon understood why. He thought Alice probably had perfect memories of Grace and didn’t want the bad ones taking over the good ones. He did wonder, though, if she was one of the people sniffling behind them. Maybe she’d used up all her tears. All he’d seen her do today was stare blankly at nothing, somewhere over the casket, as though there was something to be seen against the cream-coloured back wall, like a slide show of cute baby pictures. He’d seen that done before.

Jayne said the casket was so small it looked like a doll’s bed. Gideon agreed. Kathy said that Grace looked prettier than she’d ever seen her. Alice had chosen the most beautiful dress she could find, even though she didn’t want to look at it, now that it was on Grace. Gideon said that he thought she looked real pretty, although her beautiful olive skin was paler now, as though covered lightly with baby powder. He thought Grace, lying peacefully within the tiny casket, was a perfect-sized doll for the little bed.

J
AYNE USED TO DREAM ABOUT BEING A PRINCESS
, like Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. She’d wear these cute little princess dresses and spin so hard in ‘em that the bottom of the dress rose up into a perfect circle. I always told her she looked like Saturn when she did that, what with that ring spinnin’ around her middle. She used to smile so big that her face got all scrunched together, and, when I watched her little bare feet go up on tiptoes and take little steps in little circles, my face would get all scrunched up too. Grace was too young to care about princesses and all that. She used to wear the same kind of dresses only because Jayne wore ‘em. She woulda worn blue if that’s what Jayne was wearing. She never cared too much about what Kathy wore; I guess there was an attraction for the one closer to her age. Jayne liked that about Grace. Made her feel special. She always used to call her “my baby” like Grace was all hers, and Grace, in turn, always called Jayne “my Jayney.” Point is, ever since Grace died, Jayne might’ve still worn her princess stuff, but she never spun around so pretty any more.

Of course that wasn’t the only thing that had changed since Grace died. Things were unsteady at Alice’s trailer. It’s like when you throw a big rock into the lake and the water ripples for a while before everything’s calm again. The bigger the rock, the longer it takes the water to calm down. Well, little Grace dying was about the biggest rock you could imagine. A boulder. One of the things that happened on account of Grace dying like she did was that Alice stopped letting her girls go out much at all, and never without her. Hell, she never even let them out with me, and before that I used to go out and play with them all the time. So the girls were stuck inside, and they seemed all overcrowded with sadness, whether they realized it or not. It was like claustrophobia or whatever, only it wasn’t walls crushing the girls, it was memories. Watching
TV
, those girls were sitting right where Grace used to sit, where she used to bug ‘em and crawl all over ‘em. In the bedroom, playing with their toys, the girls were always in the shadow of where Grace used to play or sitting beside Grace’s bed.

After Grace died I made a point of coming to Alice’s place more often than I used to, and that’s pretty often, because I used to come to Alice’s place more than I was at my own place. I liked being over there, so it wasn’t much of a chore, you know. But it was also a conscious effort for me, because, as much as Alice loved her girls, she just couldn’t bring herself to do much with them. If the girls were watching Dora in front of the television, Alice would find her way to her room, or Grace’s bed, and curl up and read or cry, depending on her mood, and, if the girls were playing in their room, Alice’d be in front of the television watching the news or something. I don’t know why that was. Me, I’d’ve kept those girls shut tight in my arms forever, if I were her. Maybe she didn’t want to get too close to them in case she lost another one. Hell, Kathy’d run off the previous week and Alice just about had a heart attack. So I don’t think anybody could blame her for that.

Well, anyway, on the day I’m talking about I got over to Alice’s house about mid-morning. I parked on the highway, just like I always did since Grace died. Truth is, I didn’t have much of a choice anyway, because Alice, she’d made a barricade so nobody could drive up to her house ever again. One by one, she’d taken big rocks from the beach and brought them to the mouth of her driveway, and one by one the barricade got bigger and bigger, until it was big enough to block the whole entrance. I walked around the rocks and made my way to the front door, but stopped before gettin’ there because outside the girls’ bedroom window there was a big pile of clumsily made paper airplanes. I didn’t think nothin’ of it right then, other than it was something I never saw either of the girls do before. I just chuckled at the pile and shook my head a bit, even picked one of them up and tried to make it fly, but it sort of just shot right down to the ground nose first. I had half a mind to pick them up and toss them in the trash, because eventually the wind was going to take them all over the rez, flying like they shoulda been in the first place, but I thought better of it.

When I got inside, I saw the girls must’ve been playing in their room because Alice was sitting all quiet on the couch, watching a talk show; one of those Jerry Springer bullshit shows where there’s more shouting than talking. I always thought they shoulda called shows like that shout shows as opposed to talk shows. Anything coulda been on though, because Alice, I don’t think she was really watching the
TV.
I think it was more, like, distracting her. She was real quiet all the time. You know, she must’ve had lots of thoughts up in her head, unpleasant ones and all that, ones she’d rather not be thinking. The only problem I saw with watching a stupid show like the one she was watching was it didn’t require much thinking so it couldn’t have been much of a distraction. She woulda been better off watching one of those crime shows I liked. At least those made you use your brain from time to time.

I went over to sit beside her for a little bit, even though I knew there wasn’t much going to come of it. We’d developed a routine, Alice and me. I’d say a bunch of things to her, she wouldn’t really answer, and then I’d leave her be and go off and hang out with Kathy and Jayne. Those two said lots of things. I didn’t hold nothin’ against Alice, of course, because Grace’s death was still pretty recent and she was dealing with stuff the way she had to deal with stuff. The girls, they were dealing with stuff too, but while Alice was pushing everyone and everything away, the girls were keeping things real close to them, and they sure did love their Uncle Gideon those days. And as terrible as the reasons were for that, I kind of liked being needed like that. Maybe I needed to keep things close, too, because I sure did love little Grace, and the closer I kept Kathy and Jayne to me the less guilty I felt about flaking out on Alice the night Grace died. Yeah, Grace was a boulder for me too, that was for sure.

First thing I noticed when I sat down was a cigarette on the coffee table in front of the couch, resting on a piece of aluminum foil shaped like an ashtray. She’d already sucked half of it back, and I watched the smoke rise from it for a few seconds, appreciating how smoke from a cigarette was maybe the only thing pretty about smoking, how it kinda danced and curled in the air. I didn’t know what to think about Alice smoking, because it wasn’t something I’d ever seen her do. That’s probably why I never said anything for a little bit—I was processing and all that. Eventually, though, I tore my eyes away from the cigarette and gave Alice a careful little touch on the arm. I was always careful when I touched her lately, like if I touched her too hard she would just break into pieces.