Julie Murphy - Side Effects May Vary

I didn’t really have big plans for tonight, but Alice had been so tired lately and I was scared. Every night could be the last. By the time my shift ended at seven thirty she was usually about to fall asleep, so I tried to cut out early as much as I could. Her body was starting to wind down on her, drowning bits of herself a little more every day. It wasn’t what I’d expected, dying.

As I shifted the Geo into park, Alice’s front door closed. Either Bernie or Alice’s dad, Martin, must have just gotten home. Like I’d told Dennis, on the menu tonight was The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou . Dennis said it was hilarious and a little sad too. The sad I could handle; it was the hilarious that worried me. The funny movies had been the hardest to get through, because you’re supposed to laugh and Alice was too tired to laugh. When she couldn’t laugh, I tried to remember her laugh for her, and for me too, in case I forgot it. But every time I recalled it in my head it sounded distorted and far away, like the screams you hear when you’re waiting in line outside a haunted house.

I grabbed the DVD from the passenger seat, not even bothering to take off my Grocery Emporium apron. Running past Alice’s mom’s car, I could still feel the warmth transmitting from the engine.

I knocked on the door as a formality. I had my own key anyway. But before I had a chance to shove the key into the lock, Bernie answered the door, her normally smooth face a red mess.

“Harvey, we just got—”

I interrupted her because I was scared of what she would say. “Hey, Bernie, I brought over another movie.” I began to step toward the front door, looking down at her as I asked, “Alice in her room?” But Bernie wasn’t shifting to let me through. Her body stood wedged in the crack between the door and the frame, like I was a threat.

“Stay put for a minute, Harvey.” She shut the door without giving me a second to respond. Then the lock clicked.

The muscles in my back tensed.

Through the door, I heard Bernie say, “It’s Harvey. You should tell him.”

Silence.

My throat closed and my heart hammered a hole in my chest.

“You should be the one to tell him,” she said, more insistent this time.

Dead air.

I tried peeking through the curtains, scared of what I might find, but the blinds were pulled down too tightly. I heard hushed voices. And I knew. They were trying to figure out how to tell me she was gone. I wanted to walk right in and tell them I knew. I knew that night when she told me. I’ll miss you most.

I was a stranger on the doorstep, certain that I’d lost my connection to Bernie and Martin that mattered most. Sticking my empty hand in the pocket of my jeans, I shook around some loose change and thought about the list. When she first told me about it, I told her she was crazy. But if it hadn’t been for the list, I might not have had her all to myself this last year. So, I guess we both got a little bit of what we wanted. She got the last word and I got her.

A minute later, Martin came to the door. Of course Bernie would send Martin out here to tell me, but I didn’t want to think of this moment every time I saw him. He wore his usual ripped jeans, an old, threadbare T-shirt, and loafers. He looked even more exhausted than Bernie. As he stepped out onto the front porch, he closed the door behind him. No one had ever called Martin the father figure in my life or my male role model or some crap like that, but he was. And I didn’t want him to be tied to this memory, the moment I found out she was gone.

What if she’s in there? Her lifeless body might have still been in there—maybe in her bed, tucked in like she was asleep—waiting to be picked up by the funeral home or the ambulance or whoever did those sorts of things. I closed my eyes, but panicked when my memory of her face was fuzzy. I wanted to see her, but it would be all wrong and I was too chickenshit for that. I couldn’t see her like that. Seeing a dead body outside of a funeral home would be like seeing your teacher out at a restaurant or at a concert.

“Hey, Harv,” said Martin. He rubbed his hand up the back of his short cropped hair and puffed his cheeks full of air before slowly deflating them.

He smiled. He was smiling.

No. That had to be wrong. You can’t smile—she’s dead. Don’t tell me her pain is gone. Don’t tell me she’ll be at peace. Because she’s not at peace, she’s gone. I wanted to scream all of these things at him. My blood boiled and my knuckles begged to connect with his face. All that anger felt sour in my mouth, but Alice was gone, and now I was waiting for that other half of me to disappear.

“It’s gone, man.” Martin wasn’t the type of guy who spoke like a teenager so he could be hip and “connect with the kids.” He talked like a teenager because he still was one, in a way. But I didn’t hear Martin call me man, which would normally lift at least a corner of my lip. I heard it . I didn’t know what it meant.

“It?” I asked. My voice was too high and strangled, like puberty wasn’t done with me quite yet.

A whole river of tears loomed behind my eyes waiting for the word. I tried to picture myself falling apart on their front porch. I didn’t even care about what I would look like or who would see me. Would they invite me in to comfort me or were they bandaging their own wounds now? Maybe they’d send me back to my car, then call my mom to warn her of the storm. What really stung was that if she was gone, I should have known. I should’ve felt it.

“The cancer.” Martin choked on his words. “She’s in remission.”

Three words. Three words I never thought I would ever hear. Three words that could build enough tomorrows to last me forever.

“Can I come in and see her?” I asked, reaching for the door. Really, I needed proof that she was still here and alive.

He opened the door and stuck his head inside. After whispering a few words to whoever stood in the entryway, he turned back to me. His eyes shifted a little. “She’s resting. Her body’s still got a lot of work to do, but we’ll call Natalie and plan a celebratory dinner.” He shrugged his shoulders, like he was trying to communicate something else to me, but I didn’t get it.

It was the first time they’d ever told me no, the only time they’d ever not let me into their home.

But she was alive. Martin reached for me, and I stood there, shocked, as he hugged me with my arms glued to my sides. He squeezed me so hard that the DVD in my hand slipped from my fingers and clattered to the front porch.

I walked to my car, my feet knowing what to do without my mind ever telling them to do so. We could be together. Alice and I. That could be my life. I unlocked my car and sat behind the wheel for a moment, letting all of last year flood me. She’d have to make up for a lot of lost time at school. But it was okay. It would all be okay. My white-knuckled fingers gripped the peeling steering wheel as a smile tugged at my lips. Pulling the rearview mirror down to face me I saw that I wore the same stupefied smile Martin had worn moments ago.

I shifted gears into reverse, and squinted at Alice’s house before rolling down the driveway. And there she was, watching me through a crack in the blinds of the big bay window in the office. The blinds shifted and she was gone. I told myself every reason why she might not let me in. Especially now, after everything. And then I told myself, it was okay, because now we had time on our side.

What should have been our end had become our beginning.

Iwas dizzy, my sixth dizzy spell in three weeks. The first had been that day in Luke’s car after I’d seen my mom with that man. I thought it was just a reaction to being so overwhelmed, but after the fourth dizzy spell during World History last week, I started to think something might be wrong. But it felt like a dumb thing to go to the doctor for. What was I supposed to say? I saw my mom with some guy, and I’ve been feeling dizzy ever since? I probably needed more iron or something like that. Then last night I woke up shivering and covered in sweat, and now I didn’t know what was wrong.