Sixty

Sunday, November 1

I enter the Stone Rose and flick on the lights. As I do, I see the clock on the wall.

Just after two in the morning.

November first. Day of the Dead, when all souls come back to earth.

I walk over and turn on the espresso machine, which whirs and hums in its satisfying, predictable way. As I stand layered in my blood and urine and vomit, there’s nothing so satisfyingly normal as the slow wakening of my espresso machine.

To my office, my comforting tree house with its wood paneling and tight, snug spaces. I soak in it, breathe of it. It is home. It is me. In a corner drawer, I have a pair of sweats, a T-shirt, and training shoes—gym supplies. I strip out of my stained and vile clothes and into these fresh ones. I even lace up the shoes.

Then I bring down the first-aid kit, which I think has been used perhaps twice since I opened the Rose. Grab the Band-Aids, head to the bathroom.

Turn on the light. Look in the mirror.

I am a mess.

I am beautiful.

I turn on the water and let it become comfortably warm, then lightly splash some on my face. The sink turns pink with the blood still flowing from the tip of my nose. I rinse the wound on my arm. The nick on my neck. These will all become more scars I can add to my collection. More parts of me, queen of scars. Hash marks of life. All perfect.

I bandage everything in a piecemeal fashion, layers upon layers, piecing myself back together.

I think of Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas. The Sally who needed the Jack to love her.

Back into the shop. A cloud of steam suddenly pours from the espresso machine, and as I walk over to it, I find the valve open, which I’m certain it wasn’t just a few minutes ago. I find comfort in this. Ghost in the machine.

I pull a double shot of espresso. It comes out as always a gorgeous shade of black, topped with a silky, caramel crema. One packet of sugar. Stir. Sip. I think of rich soil from a faraway land, one I might have been told stories about when I was a little girl.

Then I move back to the front of the store, turn off the lights, sit on the floor cross-legged. I cradle the espresso with both hands—soaking in the heat of the porcelain cup—and absorb the silence around me. Wrap myself in the darkness.

I think of my father. Of all he taught me without even knowing, perhaps, what he was saying. I need to have his name again, my name. I will be Alice Hill again, leaving the Gray forever behind.

I think of Thomas, waiting for me to come home. I’m not going to be his savior, because I refuse to fall into that role after everything I’ve been through. But I will give him a chance to experience life free from medication, free from a forced and violent coddling. I can’t promise to keep him from drowning, but I won’t hold his head under the water.

I think of my mother, but not for long. Perhaps she is also somehow a victim, but I struggle to see it. I wonder if I will ever see her again.

I think of Jack, and then Maggie, and then of myself. Of our commonality. How we all sought a profession of serving drinks, of slaking particular thirsts while standing behind a counter. I glance to the Rose’s counter and wonder how much of it is just a barrier that I had hoped would separate and protect me from those who wander into my space.

My search for clarity, for sanity, for normalcy, is over. None of these things exist, at least not in a way I could ever seize and keep hold of them. There is both profound sadness and relief in knowing this. Maybe that’s true for all of us. Searching, searching. Those moments when true ugliness surrounds you, and it makes you want to burst out, search for brilliant, bright existence, run along the grasses of sweet mountains, finding God or whatever exists in His place. You say, Tomorrow I will do that, tomorrow I will do something unexpected, unpredictable, and the shell around me will crumble. I’ll be free. Fucking free. And you can imagine how you’ll smile when that happens. You see it in your visions, drink of it until it’s just enough for you to make it through the night.

But the tomorrows of your thoughts are so very different from the ones that actually come. This is what I am just now realizing.

The concept of tomorrow is an illusion, a sweeping gesture of time. Marketing.

At some point—and here I arrive in this very moment—you realize it’s about the nuances of today. Those tiny moments, some of them hardly perceptible, that define what it means to take each breath, one by one, until they are all used up. For me, for all I’ve experienced, it was never so much about finding a life unburdened by the things that have haunted me. It was about that initial, warm breeze of springtime, where you smell the sun for the first time in months. The soft resistance of your pillow after an eternal day. The touch of your father’s hand on yours, leading you forward, guiding you through a place you could never navigate on your own, even if that place is nothing more than a cheap carnival, a crowded movie theater, a playground teeming with strange children. Or the wondrous, frightening world of Chancellor’s Kingdom.

Now, in this place, my place, I know it’s about the moments, and to strive for something greater might be worthy, but for me unnecessary. I’m free now, because the scent of coffee tells me so. I breathe in, hold it four seconds, then release. Repeat.

There’s a knock on the ceiling. One knock, no more.

I smile, because this time, there’s no other excuse for it.

It’s not Simon.

It’s my dad.

He’s telling me I’ve got it all figured out.

Deep, deep in the night, sirens.