JANUARY 2005
Mom, wake up. How long has she been asleep?”
“About eighteen hours now.”
“Has she done this before?”
“A couple of times.”
“Dad, I’m worried. What if she took too many of her pills yesterday?”
“No, I checked her bottles and dispenser.”
Alice could hear them talking, and she could understand what they were saying, but she was only mildly interested. It was like eavesdropping on a conversation between strangers about a woman she didn’t know. She had no desire to wake up. She had no awareness that she was asleep.
“Ali? Can you hear me?”
“Mom, it’s me, Lydia, can you wake up?”
The woman named Lydia talked about wanting to call a doctor. The man named Dad talked about letting the woman named Ali sleep some more. They talked about ordering Mexican and eating dinner at home. Maybe the smell of food in the house would wake up the woman named Ali. Then, the voices ceased. Everything was dark and quiet again.
SHE WALKED DOWN A SANDY path that led into dense woods. She ascended via a series of switchbacks out of the woods and onto a steep, exposed cliff. She walked to the edge and looked out. The ocean below her was frozen solid, its shore buried in high drifts of snow. The panorama before her appeared lifeless, colorless, impossibly still, and silent. She yelled for John, but her voice carried no sound. She turned to go back, but the path and the forest were gone. She looked down at her pale, bony ankles and bare feet. With no other choice, she readied to step off the cliff.
SHE SAT ON A BEACH chair and buried and unburied her feet in the warm, fine sand. She watched Christina, her best friend from kindergarten and still only five years old, flying a butterfly kite. The pink and yellow daisies on Christina’s bathing suit, the blue and purple wings of the butterfly kite, the blues in the sky, the yellow sun, the red polish on her own toenails, indeed every color before her was more brilliant and striking than anything she’d ever seen. As she watched Christina, she was overwhelmed with joy and love, not so much for her childhood friend but for the bold and breathtaking colors of her bathing suit and kite.
Her sister, Anne, and Lydia, both about sixteen years old, lay next to each other on red, white, and blue striped beach towels. Their shiny, caramel bodies in matching bubble gum pink bikinis glistened in the sun. They, too, were glossy, cartoon-colored, and mesmerizing.
“Ready?” asked John.
“I’m a little scared.”
“It’s now or never.”
She stood, and he strapped her torso into a harness attached to a tangerine orange parasail. He clicked and adjusted buckles until she felt snug and secure. He held on to her shoulders, pushing against the strong, invisible force willing her upward.
“Ready?” asked John.
“Yes.”
He let go of her, and she soared with exhilarating speed into the palette of the sky. The winds she traveled on were dazzling swirls of robin’s egg blue, periwinkle, lavender, and fuchsia. The ocean below was a rolling kaleidoscope of turquoise, aquamarine, and violet.
Christina’s butterfly kite won its freedom and fluttered nearby. It was the most exquisite thing Alice had ever seen, and she wanted it more than anything she’d ever desired. She reached out to grab its string, but a sudden, strong shift in air current spun her around. She looked back, but it was obscured by the glowing sunset orange of her parasail. For the first time, she realized that she couldn’t steer. She looked down at the earth, at the vibrant dots that were her family. She wondered if the beautiful and spirited winds would ever bring her back to them.
LYDIA LAY CURLED ON HER side on top of the covers of Alice’s bed. The shades were drawn, the room filled with soft, subdued daylight.
“Am I dreaming?” asked Alice.
“No, you’re awake.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
“A couple of days now.”
“Oh no, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Mom. It’s good to hear your voice. Do you think you took too many pills?”
“I don’t remember. I could’ve. I didn’t mean to.”
“I’m worried about you.”
Alice looked at Lydia in pieces, close-up snapshots of her features. She recognized each one like people recognized the house they grew up in, a parent’s voice, the creases of their own hands, instinctively, without effort or conscious consideration. But strangely, she had a hard time identifying Lydia as a whole.
“You’re so beautiful,” said Alice. “I’m so afraid of looking at you and not knowing who you are.”
“I think that even if you don’t know who I am someday, you’ll still know that I love you.”
“What if I see you, and I don’t know that you’re my daughter, and I don’t know that you love me?”
“Then, I’ll tell you that I do, and you’ll believe me.”
Alice liked that. But will I always love her? Does my love for her reside in my head or my heart? The scientist in her believed that emotion resulted from complex limbic brain circuitry, circuitry that was for her, at this very moment, trapped in the trenches of a battle in which there would be no survivors. The mother in her believed that the love she had for her daughter was safe from the mayhem in her mind, because it lived in her heart.
“How are you, Mom?”
“Not so good. This semester was hard, without my work, without Harvard, and this disease progressing, and your dad hardly ever home. It’s been almost too hard.”
“I’m so sorry. I wish I could be here more. Next fall, I’ll be closer. I thought about moving back now, but I just got cast in this great play. It’s a small part, but—”
“It’s okay. I wish I could see you more, too, but I’d never let you stop living your life for me.”
She thought about John.
“Your dad wants to move to New York. He got an offer at Sloan-Kettering.”
“I know. I was there.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“I couldn’t imagine that you did.”
“I can’t leave here. The twins will be here in April.”
“I can’t wait to see those babies.”
“Me, too.”
Alice imagined holding them in her arms, their warm bodies, their tiny, curled fingers and chunky, unused feet, their puffy, round eyes. She wondered if they’d look like her or John. And the smell. She couldn’t wait to smell her delicious grandchildren.
Most grandparents delighted in imagining their grandchildren’s lives, the promise of attending recitals and birthday parties, graduations and weddings. She knew she wouldn’t be here for recitals and birthday parties, graduations and weddings. But she would be here to hold them and smell them, and she’d be damned if she’d be sitting alone somewhere in New York instead.
“How’s Malcolm?”
“Good. We just did the Memory Walk together in L.A.”
“What’s he like?”
Lydia’s smile jumped ahead of her answer.
“He’s very tall, outdoorsy, a little shy.”
“What’s he like with you?”
“He’s very sweet. He loves how smart I am, he’s so proud of my acting, he brags about me a lot, it’s almost embarrassing. You’d like him.”
“What are you like with him?”
Lydia considered this for several moments, as if she hadn’t before.
“Myself.”
“Good.”
Alice smiled and squeezed Lydia’s hand. She thought to ask Lydia what that meant to her, to describe herself, to remind her, but the thought evaporated too quickly to speak it.
“What were we just talking about?” asked Alice.
“Malcolm, Memory Walk? New York?” asked Lydia, offering prompts.
“I go for walks around here, and I feel safe. Even if I get a little turned around, I eventually see something that looks familiar, and enough people in the stores know me and point me in the right direction. The girl at Jerri’s is always keeping track of my wallet and keys.
“And I have my support group friends here. I need them. I couldn’t learn New York now. I’d lose what little independence I still have. A new job. Your dad would be working all the time. I’d lose him, too.”
“Mom, you need to tell all this to Dad.”
She was right. But it was so much easier telling her.
“Lydia, I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks.”
“In case I forget, know that I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
“I DON’T WANT TO MOVE to New York,” said Alice.
“It’s a long ways off, we don’t have to make a decision on it now,” said John.
“I want to make a decision on it now. I’m deciding now. I want to be clear about this while I still can be. I don’t want to move to New York.”
“What if Lydia’s there?”
“What if she’s not? You should’ve discussed this with me privately, before announcing it to the kids.”
“I did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did, many times.”
“Oh, so I don’t remember? That’s convenient.”
She breathed, in through her nose, out through her mouth, allowing a calm moment to pull herself out of the elementary school argument they were spiraling into.
“John, I knew you were meeting with people at Sloan-Kettering, but I never understood that they were wooing you for a position for this upcoming year. I would’ve spoken up if I’d known this.”
“I told you why I was going there.”
“Fine. Would they be willing to let you take your sabbatical year and start a year from September?”
“No, they need someone now. It was difficult as it was negotiating them out that far, but I need the time to finish up some things in the lab here.”
“Couldn’t they hire someone temporary, you could take your sabbatical year with me, and then you could start?”
“No.”
“Did you even ask?”
“Look, the field’s so competitive right now, and everything’s moving so rapidly. We’re on the edge of some huge finds. I mean, we’re knocking on the door to a cure for cancer. The drug companies are interested. And with all the classes and administrative crap at Harvard, it’s just slowing me down. If I don’t take this, I could ruin my one shot at discovering something that truly matters.”
“This isn’t your one shot. You’re brilliant, and you don’t have Alzheimer’s. You’re going to have plenty of shots.”
He looked at her and said nothing.
“This next year is my one shot, John, not yours. This next year is my last chance at living my life and knowing what it means to me. I don’t think I have much more time of really being me, and I want to spend that time with you, and I can’t believe you don’t want to spend it together.”
“I do. We would be.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. Our life is here. Tom and Anna and the babies, Mary, Cathy, and Dan, and maybe Lydia. If you take this, you’ll be working all the time, you know you will, and I’d be there all alone. This decision has nothing to do with wanting to be with me, and it takes everything I have left away. I’m not going.”
“I won’t be working all the time, I promise. And what if Lydia’s living in New York? What if you get to stay with Anna and Charlie one week a month? There are ways we can work this out so you’re not alone.”
“What if Lydia’s not in New York? What if she’s at Brandeis?”
“That’s why I think we should wait, make the decision later, when we have more information.”
“I want you to take the sabbatical year.”
“Alice, the choice for me isn’t ‘take the position at Sloan’ or ‘take a sabbatical year.’ It’s ‘take the position at Sloan’ or ‘continue here at Harvard.’ I just can’t take the next year off.”
He became blurry as her body trembled and her eyes burned with furious tears.
“I can’t do this anymore! Please! I can’t keep holding on without you! You can take the year off. If you wanted to, you could. I need you to.”
“What if I turn this down, and I take the next year off, and you don’t even know who I am?”
“What if I do, but after next year, I don’t? How can you even consider spending the time we have left squirreled away in your fucking lab? I would never do this to you.”
“I’d never ask you to.”
“You wouldn’t have to.”
“I don’t think I can do it, Alice. I’m sorry, I just don’t think I can take being home for a whole year, just sitting and watching what this disease is stealing from you. I can’t take watching you not knowing how to get dressed and not knowing how to work the television. If I’m in lab, I don’t have to watch you sticking Post-it notes on all the cabinets and doors. I can’t just stay home and watch you get worse. It kills me.”
“No, John, it’s killing me, not you. I’m getting worse, whether you’re home looking at me or hiding in your lab. You’re losing me. I’m losing me. But if you don’t take next year off with me, well, then, we lost you first. I have Alzheimer’s. What’s your fucking excuse?”
SHE PULLED OUT CANS AND boxes and bottles, glasses and dishes and bowls, pots and pans. She stacked everything on the kitchen table, and when she ran out of room there, she used the floor.
She took each coat out of the hall closet, unzipped and inverted all the pockets. She found money, ticket stubs, tissues, and nothing. After each strip search, she discarded the innocent coat to the floor.
She flipped the cushions off the couches and armchairs. She emptied her desk drawer and file cabinet. She dumped the contents of her book bag, her laptop bag, and her baby blue bag. She sifted through the piles, touching each object with her fingers to register its name in her head. Nothing.
Her search didn’t require her to remember where she’d already looked. The heaps of unearthed stuff evidenced her previous excavation sites. From the looks of things, she’d covered the entire first floor. She was sweating, manic. She wasn’t giving up. She raced upstairs.
She ransacked the laundry basket, the bedside tables, the dresser drawers, the bedroom closets, her jewelry box, the linen closet, the medicine cabinet. The downstairs bathroom. She ran back down the stairs, sweating, manic.
John stood in the hallway, ankle-deep in coats.
“What the hell happened in here?” he asked.
“I’m looking for something.”
“What?”
She couldn’t name it, but she trusted that somewhere in her head, she remembered and knew.
“I’ll know when I find it.”
“It’s a complete disaster in here. It looks like we’ve been robbed.”
She hadn’t thought of that. It would explain why she couldn’t find it.
“Oh my god, maybe someone stole it.”
“We haven’t been robbed. You’ve torn the house apart.”
She spotted an untouched basket of magazines next to the couch in the living room. She left John and the theft theory in the hallway, lifted the heavy basket, poured the magazines onto the floor, fanned through them, and then walked away. John followed her.
“Stop it, Alice, you don’t even know what you’re looking for.”
“Yes, I do.”
“What then?”
“I can’t say.”
“What does it look like, what’s it used for?”
“I don’t know, I told you, I’ll know when I find it. I have to find it, or I’ll die.”
She thought about what she’d just said.
“Where’s my medication?”
They walked into the kitchen, kicking through boxes of cereal and cans of soup and tuna. John found her many prescription and vitamin bottles on the floor and the days-of-the-week dispenser in a bowl on the kitchen table.
“Here they are,” he said.
The urge, the life-and-death need, didn’t dissipate.
“No, that’s not it.”
“This is insane. You have to stop this. The house is trashed.”
Trash.
She opened the compactor, pulled out the plastic bag, and dumped it.
“Alice!”
She ran her fingers through avocado skins, slimy chicken fat, balled tissues and napkins, empty cartons and wrappers, and other trash thingies. She saw the Alice Howland DVD. She held the wet case in her hands and studied it. Huh, I didn’t mean to throw this out.
“There it is, that must be it,” said John. “I’m glad you found it.”
“No, this isn’t it.”
“All right, please, there’s trash all over the floor. Just stop, go sit, and relax. You’re frenzied. Maybe if you stop and relax, it’ll come to you.”
“Okay.”
Maybe, if she sat still, she’d remember what it was and where she’d put it. Or maybe, she’d forget she was ever even looking for something.
THE SNOW THAT HAD BEGUN falling the day before and deposited about two feet over much of New England had just stopped. She might not have noticed but for the screeching sound of the wipers swinging back and forth across the newly dry windshield. John turned them off. The streets were plowed, but theirs was the only car on the road. Alice had always liked the serene quiet and stillness that followed a walloping snowstorm, but today it unnerved her.
John drove the car into the Mount Auburn Cemetery lot. A modest space for parking had been shoveled out, but the cemetery itself, the walking paths and gravestones, hadn’t yet been uncovered.
“I was afraid it might still be like this. We’ll have to come back another day,” he said.
“No, wait. Let me just look at it for a minute.”
The ancient black trees with their knuckled, varicose branches frosted in white ruled this winter wonderland. She could see a few of what were presumably the gray tops of the very tall, elaborate headstones that belonged to the once wealthy and prominent peaking above the surface of the snow, but that was it. Everything else was buried. Decomposed bodies in coffins buried under dirt and stone, dirt and stone buried under snow. Everything was black and white and frozen and dead.
“John?”
“What?”
She’d said his name too loudly, breaking the silence too suddenly, startling him.
“Nothing. We can go. I don’t want to be here.”
“WE CAN TRY GOING BACK later in the week if you want,” said John.
“Back where?” asked Alice.
“To the cemetery.”
“Oh.”
She sat at the kitchen table. John poured red wine into two glasses and gave one to her. She swirled the goblet out of habit. She was regularly forgetting the name of her daughter, the actress one, but she could remember how to swirl her wineglass, and that she liked to. Crazy disease. She appreciated the wine’s dizzying motion in the glass, its blood red color, its intense flavors of grape, oak, and earth, and the warmth she felt as it landed in her belly.
John stood in front of the opened refrigerator door and removed a block of cheese, a lemon, a spicy liquid thing, and a couple of red vegetables.
“How do chicken enchiladas sound?” he asked.
“Fine.”
He opened the freezer and rummaged inside.
“Do we have any chicken?” he asked.
She didn’t answer.
“Oh no, Alice.”
He turned to show her something in his hands. It wasn’t chicken.
“It’s your BlackBerry, it was in the freezer.”
He pressed its buttons, shook it, and rubbed it.
“It looks like it got water in it, we can see after it’s thawed, but I think it’s dead,” he said.
She burst into ready, heartbroken tears.
“It’s okay. If it’s dead, we’ll get you a new one.”
How ridiculous, why am I this upset over a dead electronic organizer? Maybe she was really crying over the deaths of her mother, sister, and father. Maybe she was feeling emotion that she’d anticipated earlier but had been unable to express properly at the cemetery. That made more sense. But that wasn’t it. Maybe the death of her organizer symbolized the death of her position at Harvard, and she was mourning the recent loss of her career. That also made sense. But what she felt was an inconsolable grief over the death of the BlackBerry itself.