A. Homes - The End of Alice

“Who’s that now?” Gram asks, her speech slightly impeded.

“Alice,” Gwen says. “And the man from the cabin.”

“Send them in.” And although we’re already in the room, we step closer.

The grandmother looks at me, her eyes still piercing beneath their cataracts. I smile feebly. She knows. It is as if my fly is open, my member out and aimed like a directional arrow at her granddaughter.

“You missed dinner,” she says.

“I’m terribly sorry. I had the date wrong. But when you’re better, I’ll cook a meal for you. What’s your favorite food?”

She makes a face shooing me away, then bends a bony finger and beckons the young one near. “Once I had a friend,” she says in a papery voice. “He soon died.”

“Gram, we have to say good-night,” the mother says, interrupting. “Rest now. Sleep tight.”

Alice holds my hand. She slips her palm into mine. No one says anything. To tame a child, to take and train her, is to charm a snake. The music of the seduction is the um-pa-pa of a carousel, the twist of a fairy tale, everything is in the believing.

“We’ve taken rooms at the Plaza for the night,” the mother says. “It was all I could get. I took the liberty of making you a reservation. Tomorrow, we’ll go back to Scarsdale. I’ve no idea what your plans are.”

We are walking down the hospital corridors. It is close to midnight. The shift is preparing to change.

“I have no plans.”

“Perhaps then you’ll go back up to the cabin.”

The guard opens the front door and we are out in the New York night.

“Frankly,” she continues, “if I never see that damned lake again, it’ll be too soon.”

The feeling is mutual.

We’re out on the street. The air, hot and tired, has nothing to offer. I drive the six of us to the hotel and am deeply relieved to watch little Alice being led off to bed in her mother’s company. “Night,” Alice calls.

“Night.” I go down the hall to my room, wanting nothing more than to be left alone.

Fitful sleep. I prepare to depart before dawn. Leaving the mother a note at the front desk, I say how sorry I am about the circumstances and how much I’m wishing Gram a speedy recovery. I pay the bill and arrange to leave the car parked until evening.

Seven-thirty A.M. I’m in Central Park. My mind races, skips from thing to thing. Giddy. I break into a run, anxious to get as far away as I possibly can. At the center of the meadow, I stop to catch my breath. Around me pass dog walkers, standard poodles and the odd Great Dane, nannies with baby carriages, and the party boy who hasn’t quite gotten home. The world is filled with possibilities. I can begin again. Start fresh.

Bethesda Fountain. The shallow boating lake. Carousel. I am all over the place, wandering drunkenly. In a diner on the Upper West Side I have breakfast: juice, eggs, bacon, toast, coffee, all of it delicious. My tongue tingles from the salt. I sit back and read the New York Times and the waitress refills my coffee cup.

Later, I go to the Metropolitan Museum. There is calm in there, a certain fixedness. Making my way down Fifth Avenue, the film Bonnie and Clyde is playing. A matinee. A dark theater. Killing time. Escaping the heat, I sink into a cushioned seat.

Near dusk, I return to the hotel for the car, stealthily sneaking through the lobby, making every effort not to be seen.

I drive north, upstate, knowing I’m not going back to New Hampshire. I drive north knowing I should be going south. Tomorrow I’ll turn around and go back the other way, but for now I’m just driving.

It begins to thunder, to lightning. An hour out, the traffic is thinning. Two hours, I’m hungry, haven’t eaten since breakfast. A red neon sign, a great white structure, a place for the night. “Motel.”

“Checking in?”

I nod. “A room, please.”

“You and your family?”

“Just me.”

“Funny,” he says, pulling out the paperwork. “I thought I just saw a little girl go by.”

My breath catches. I smile, checking the impulse to whirl around, to look behind me. He must be imagining things or seeing someone else. The world is filled with little girls.

I fill out the registration card, giving New Hampshire as my permanent address, and ask the clerk to recommend a restaurant.

He tells me the name of a place and sketches a map on the back of a postcard.

“Thanks,” I say, taking the room key. I walk across the parking lot. The air is filled with humidity. It is almost dark, the trees stand out against the night.

Opening the door to the room, a wave of inexplicable depression sweeps over me. The room is regulation, ugly, orange plaid. I don’t go inside. I close the door and tell myself that once I have something to eat, I will feel better and then it will be only for a night.

Light evaporates from the sky. The air is heavy. Every breath is taken with hesitation and great suspicion. One tries not to move too quickly. The early promise of the day has faded. I’m tired now and a little bit afraid. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m traveling without knowing where I’m going, or what my future will be. I’m going, knowing only that it must be different.

“Could we see the photographs?” the man asks.

“I don’t need to see anything so explicit,” the whitehaired woman says.

“They document the event,” the man says.

“I feel like I already know what happened,” the old woman says.

“It is our job to review everything,” the black woman says. “Let’s have the photographs.”

The secretary opens a big brown envelope. “There are two sets,” she says.

“The three of us can share one. Let him look at the other.” The man nods in my direction. The secretary hands the guard a pile of eight by tens. He holds them up in front of me. Glossy.

“This is Alice,” the man says.

Instinctively, I turn away.

The restaurant. Booth. Menu.

“What’ll it be?”

Meat loaf.” There can be nothing better than a thick slice of meat loaf, with mashed potatoes, carrots, and peas.

“To drink?”

“Black coffee,” I say, and feel relaxed. I leave my jacket at the table and go to the men’s room. I splash my face and the back of my neck with cold water, blotting dry with a wad of brown paper towels.

When I return, my food has arrived, a steaming plate is waiting on the table.

“God, I’m starving,” she says. “I’m so hungry I could faint.” She has my silverware in hand and is digging in.

I slip into the vacant seat.

“You’re a liar,” she says, eating my dinner. “You promised not to leave me. Luckily, I knew you were a fake. I knew it all along.”

“Your mother will call the police.”

She gestures toward the food, offering me some.

I decline. My appetite is gone. “How did you get here?”

“In your car,” she says. “I lay in the back of the car, all day. I couldn’t let you just escape. You’re unbelievably oblivious and”—she pauses—“a speed demon.”

She hands me a spoon. “Take it. Under the table, put it in me.”

She spreads her legs, her knees knock against mine. A fork clatters to the floor. I bend to get it; the waitress beats me there. “I’ll get you a clean one,” she says, picking it up.

“Come on,” Alice says.

I shake my head. “No.”

“Yes.”

“No. I can’t do it. I can’t do it anymore.”

“Yes,” she says intently.

The spoon is old, soft around the edges, it fits in easily. “This is awful,” I say, on the verge of tears. “I feel awful.”

“Awful is awful. I feel awful, too. Everything hurts. My head hurts, my face is covered in bumps that I’m driven to touch until they’re raw, even my tits ache.”