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“Let’s go for a walk, Alison. Can we?” Will asks. Breaking the eye contact between Barb and me, I nod and get up from the table. He hands me my jacket and holds the door open for me, letting me pass through.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring stuff up. I’ve just got so many questions.”
“I know. It’s okay. It’s okay. Let’s walk.” He takes my arm and leads me down the steps to walk down the sidewalk and out to the road. The wind is still brisk, but the sun is high in the sky and feels warm on my cheeks.
“I’m really sorry,” I say again as we pass my car, and I think about telling him I can leave now, but I had already vacated the apartment and planned to sleep here tonight before moving on.
“You deserve answers,” he says, in his quiet, calm way. “Barb had a really hard time when Alice left.” He lets his arm drop over my shoulder. “She doesn’t talk about it well, even now.” We have come to a small bridge over a drainage ditch, and he steps down the ravine and sits on a stone step. I go down and join him, relieved to be out of the wind.
“I’m just trying to figure her out, Will . . . my mom, I mean. I just want to know what made her the way she is. Was.”
“I know. So, let me tell you what I know. I met your mom when she was thirteen, the year before she left.”
“You met her?” I ask, my center shifting. “You’re not her dad?”
“No. I’m not.” He sighs out a long breath and rubs his hands down his thighs and over his knees. He has strong hands with big knuckles and skin that has been roughened by use. I close my mouth together with a click of my teeth. I thought I had found the answer, but I just keep finding more questions. “I met your mother when Alice was eleven. Her dad, Curt, had been gone for a couple of years by then. I think he left when she was nine.” Another long breath. “Alice was pretty angry. She and Barb weren’t getting on well by then, but we thought she’d come around. Her dad signed over his rights, and I adopted her. We tried to be a family.”
“Why did he leave?”
“Curt had his problems. He wasn’t necessarily a bad man, just had demons.” Will looks over at me and holds my gaze. “I think . . . well, I think things happened to your mother when she was young, and we maybe didn’t help her get through them as best we could. We didn’t know . . . well, Barb did, but I only found out later, after she was gone. That’s why Barb forced Curt to leave, why she made him sign over his rights.”
“He did things to her?” I feel sick, weak. “They repeat what they know,” Vaude had said. “It’s all they know.” When I’d heard her words, I was offended. I was angry that she could talk like that about me, behind my back, someone that she welcomed in her home for meals, someone she hugged as a mother would, as a mother should.
Will nods, slow. Watching the dawning in my expression. I push my hands over my face and into my hair, feeling my own broken childhood screaming forth. We repeat what we know. What happened to me happened to her.
“It was a confusing time for her, after he left, because she loved him, felt like he abandoned her. He was sick, and what he did was sick, but she didn’t understand at the time. She just thought he didn’t love her anymore. She thought she had done something wrong. She and Barb never did get along, and it just got worse. I always thought she left to find him or that he had taken her. I figured that’s why we never found her, because she was with him and he knew where we would look.”
We talk . . . well, mostly he talks and I listen, trying to catalog all of this new information.
It’s too much, but I need to process it. When we have talked through all the details he has to give, him being careful not to actually say the words, I let him walk back to the house without me. I stay behind, sitting on the cold, hard concrete until the chill climbs through all the layers of my clothes and leaves my spine in ice.
When I walk back to the house, I find that the table has been cleared and the boys are all sitting in the living room, watching football, the Rose Bowl, I think. Will stands when I come in, and I motion him to the kitchen. “Where’s Barb?”
“She’s gone up to lie down.”
“Can I go see her?” I ask, my voice low, humble.
“Yeah. She’d probably like that.” He heads up the stairs, and I follow behind, thawing a bit with each step. “Barb honey?” He knocks on the door and opens it. “Alison would like to talk to you. Can she come in?” I can see around him, the mound under blankets, the back facing us. Her head nods, and she turns over as he lets me pass. He steps out and closes the door.
“You okay?” I ask, and I notice how much cooler the upstairs is compared to the down. I had left my jacket downstairs, but wish I had kept it on now. She nods and wipes her eyes, sniffling as she sits up. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m not good at knowing the right time to talk about stuff. I shouldn’t have brought her up.” I sit on the edge of the bed, looking away from her, out into the room, the clean, orderly room.
“No. You’re fine,” she says between sniffles. “I just don’t really know how to talk about Alice.” She puts her hand over mine. “I hope she did it better than I did.”
“She didn’t.” I look at her, letting the full knowledge of the life I shared with her Alice show in my eyes. “She didn’t do anything well. Except drink. She was a really good drinker.” I laugh out a sob. “Did you drink?” I ask, because I have to know if we repeat what we know.
She shakes her head. “Her father drank enough for all of us.” Something shifts in her eyes. “Not Will.”
“I know. He told me.” She nods. “Will you tell me the truth if I tell you the truth?” I ask, and she nods, lifting the blanket for me to slide in. I slip my socked feet into the warmth of her cocoon, and we sit side by side with our backs against the headboard. The silence stretches out before us, and neither of us want to put the first word into the air. Our shoulders rest against each other, hers warm against mine, even through my sweater. She takes a deep quivering breath and starts.
“I was just out of high school when Curt and I got pregnant. My parents never cared for him, and they didn’t want to let me marry him, but when we told him about the baby, my Daddy put up a wedding for us and helped us get settled in that little house over on Clark Street that we lived in when your mom was born. Curt had a hard time settling down, and more often than not he was gone with his friends until all hours. Looking back, I know we were just too young.” She talks until her voice is hoarse, and when she tells me about finding out that he was “doing what he did,” she whispers the words. I take her hand in mine, to let her know that I understand and she doesn’t have to say anything else about that. “I made him leave. I had the police come and put him out of the house. I changed all the locks and told him if he ever set foot in the county again, I would have him arrested for what he had done.” I want to applaud her, because of course she did the right thing. What else could she have done but let it continue?
I try to remember when Ed left—did Mom put him out and tell him the same thing? Or did she negotiate our trailer and little spot of land as just payment for the liberties he had taken with me?
When it is my turn, I tell her the truth about my mother, but not the whole truth about me. I tell her that she always seemed to be searching for something and that she was troubled. I tell her that she drank a lot and that the last man she got mixed up with was a druggie and he got her mixed up in all of that too. I tell her that Mom died of an accidental overdose. I don’t mention the water bottle, and I don’t mention the role that Warren may have played. I tell her that the druggie is dead and now she is dead. We cry together, tears that I have not let fall for the mother I lost, tears that Barb still has for the daughter she lost.
Dusk has long settled to night when our voices cease and a comforting silence fills the room. When Will comes in, many hours later, he finds us curled together, my head resting on her arm, as a daughter to a mother, and I open my eyes enough to see him turn and go back out the door. I need her more than he does tonight.