A. Homes - The End of Alice

I take off my shoes. She still hasn’t come up. There is a thunk on the underside of the boat, a knocking that could only be her. I throw myself over. I am under. In the bracing cold, I see nothing but murk. I come up for breath, gasping, fearing it is me who might drown. I draw air and go under again, feeling with arms and legs, deep as I can go. I brush against her, grab, but she slips through my grip. I shoot to the surface, break for air, and go back again, this time finding her, fetching her, hauling her up.

Unconscious, unbreathing. I raise her torso, hoist her into the boat — which pulls away from me. Taking great care not to capsize the small ship, I then pull myself in. Luck, only luck, and a burst of physical fitness let me do this.

Establish an airway, chin up, head back. My mouth sealed over hers in total desperation. I fear she’s made me her murderer, chosen me intentionally. I will not settle for this. I am an innocent man. You must know that. Furiously, I blow into her lungs, willing to trade my life for hers. With the full weight of my anger I breathe, I blow, I beat at the breast, and row, row, row, fast as I can, back toward shore. She coughs, sputters, and comes back to life. I wrap her in the tablecloth of our picnic and climb out, splashing through the last few feet of water, crashing barefoot through the woods toward her house.

I am bringing her home, giving her back. I don’t know what else to do. Breathless when I reach the porch, I kick at the back door until finally Gwendolyn, in curlers, answers.

“The boat, the lake, her head banged,” I blurt.

“Mother,” Gwendolyn bleats. “Mother, come quick.”

I lay little Alice across the backseat of their car.

Gwen raises the edge of the tablecloth and covers Alice’s exposed breast. “She looks too old to be skinny-dipping.”

“I’ve brought her back,” I say as the mother comes running out. She looks at her daughter and flies fast into the front seat.

“Do you need a doctor as well?” the mother asks. I shake my head, oblivious to the fact that my feet are bleeding.

I could have taken her home, kept her for myself, but I brought her back to them, is that what she would have wanted? “She banged her head on the bottom of the boat.”

“Damned lake,” the mother says, turning the ignition. The engine grinds, is slow to turn over. “Damn it to hell.” Gwendolyn pulls the door closed. I am out on the side of the road. The car backs away.

I don’t know what to do. I go back to the lake, the boat has disappeared, the current has carried it off along with the remains of lunch, her clothing, all of it evidence.

A bath, a drink, another drink, dry clothes, bandages for the feet, and I drive into town, parking at a pay phone across from the hospital.

“Good condition,” the nurse says.

“Good?” I say.

“Yes, that’s right. Admitted for observation, concussion.”

“Yes, she bumped her head. But she’s in good condition?”

“Yes, that’s right. And you say you’re the father?”

“Yes, that’s wonderful,” I say, hanging up. Good is like better or best, it’s hopeful, promising. It means everything will be all right.

Alone at night, I don’t sleep at all. I lie on her side of the bed, my head against the pillow where she usually rests. I turn my face into the pillow and breathe the scent of a little girl who bathes infrequently, sweet dirty sweat. Still hooked to the bed frame are strands of her hair; I take them into my mouth, sucking them. What to do? What to do?

Pain. Pain wakes me. My arm. My chest.

“Breathe,” the sergeant is telling me. “Breathe.”

I am being divided, cleaved in half, a sharp searing pain splits my chest.

Salts are passed under my nose. I am at the sea, I am at the shore. I am in a doctor’s office, there is the smell of a doctor’s office.

“Breathe.”

I am awake, upright. I am in the chair, still in the chair, in the committee room. The members of the committee have disappeared. I see their backs as they are leaving, passing through the second door. Guards surround me. My chains are undone.

“Are we finished? What happened? Did I scare them away?”

No one answers me. Did they hear the question? Did I even ask it out loud?

“Are you all right?” the sergeant asks.

“I think so.”

“You must have fainted. These hearings can be very stressful, and at your age…”

I am lifted to standing and then led, half-carried, through the very door through which I arrived. No door number three today.

The key doesn’t unlock the cell. The sergeant goes halfway around his chain, trying to find the right key. The guards, my escorts, pass me back and forth between them, taking turns fiddling with the keys.

“What time is it?” I ask.

Growing increasingly nervous, the escort guards ask, “Is this the right room?”

“Ah,” the sergeant says, fitting the key into the lock, opening the door.

It is my cell, my same old cell. Home.

Everything is as it was. Deeply relieved, the guards push me in, undo the belly chain, the shackles, the handcuffs.

“Is that all? Is there more?”

“Tomorrow,” someone says. “It’ll be finished tomorrow.” And then the door is closed, locked, and I am left on the shreds of my mattress.

My belongings are still on the bed frame, ready to go. Seeing them there still waiting is an insult. It is as though my own things have turned on me. The glass on the Schmitt box is broken. When I left this morning, I could have sworn it was intact. But it is broken now, pressing in on my ancient butterflies. I lift the lid, the glass falls away.

From my sewing kit, I take a spool of thread and tie thin white lines around the bodies of my butterflies. Holding them high above my head, I fly them like kites, whipping them through the air, whirling round. Hoary Elfin, Painted Lady, Common Blue. Old and infirm, they break apart, the wings easily come away from the head. Between my fingers, they crumble to dust.

Dinner comes, a tray slipped through the slot in the door, Henry’s hole.

“There must be a mistake,” I call to the guard, pushing the tray back through the slot.

The guard pushes the tray through the hole again. “No,” I say, pushing it back once more. “A mistake, there must have been a mistake.”

“Think again,” he says, keeping the tray, moving off down the hall. “Fucking lunatic,” I hear him mumble.

Not to worry, I tell myself, not to worry.

My room is a mess, dotted with debris, remnants of my packing party. Pushing everything off to the side, I find paper and pen. I write a letter, a letter to my love, a precious poem, pouring it on, syrupy thick. This is it. I’m begging, pleading that she come back.

Henry beckons me to the door. “I have something for you. A gift, a little nightcap.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say, suddenly depressed, worried about my budding addiction.

“I cooked it just for you, it’s special,” Henry says. “You didn’t eat your dinner, so try my little concoction. Taste, just take a taste.”

And again I cast myself into the curves of a contortionist and fit my mouth into the slot in the door. Henry’s old glass works go through the hole, the needle pokes my cheek. “Raise your tongue.”

“Is it sterilized?”

“I clean it with Clorox every time.”

I lift my lickety licker. “Hold it,” Henry says. The needle is in position under my tongue. Drug in, needle out. I pitch forward, instantly asleep.

In my dream I drive a yellow truck.

Despite my best efforts I’m always the one who gets fucked.

Going, going, gone. She lies in bed. Yesterday, she tried to kill herself, today she is a little tired, groggy, under the weather.