Then a few months ago, Alice began stopping by the flat, acting like she was interested in changing, like she wanted a relationship with Marie again. But each time she left, Marie found money and valuables missing.
Whatever little Marie had, Alice found a way to take it.
The local authorities knew about the situation, but the least of their troubles was a teenager strung out on heroin and stealing money from home. They had promised to bring her back to Marie if they found her, but Alice didn’t have a driver’s license or ID. So how would police know if it was her or not? Alice was an adult, yes, but she was also Marie’s daughter. Stealing from a parent was more domestic disturbance than theft.
Which was why Marie had changed the locks. So that Alice couldn’t come through the front door looking for money and items to steal. So she couldn’t use Marie to stay in her wretched addiction. But now that Alice’s key didn’t work, Marie wondered if maybe this was worse. Hearing Alice pound on the door, listening to her cry out for Marie to let her in, let her have what she wanted.
Marie shuddered. She felt sick. The echoes of her daughter’s desperate voice still played in her heart and mind. Would Alice come back tomorrow, pounding on the door and wanting only to find something to steal?
It was late, hours from sunrise. Marie dried her cheeks. Time to put the photo book back where it belonged. Once more she stood and pushed through the ache in her muscles. When the pictures were back in the drawer, out of sight, she returned to her bed. But before she dropped to the sheets, she stopped.
Through it all, through every heartbreaking day knowing Alice was a drug addict living on the streets, Marie had never done the one thing her mother had asked her to do. She had never prayed to Jesus about Alice. Marie didn’t believe like her mother believed. Alice didn’t, either. What had God ever done for them? And why should she believe He was even real?
But here, now… Marie was out of options.
The gravity of the situation pulled her to her knees in a way she was helpless to stop. And there, she buried her face in her hands and did the one thing she swore she’d never do.
“God… if You’re there… help Alice.” Her voice was tired, desperate. “Please, I beg You. Help Alice.”
Then she struggled to her feet and crawled back into bed. There. She had followed her mother’s wishes. Not so much because she believed. Not because she really thought some Almighty Heavenly Father would hear her prayers.
But because she had nowhere else to turn.
1998 2
Death was calling for Alice Michel.
In a hissing sort of whisper, it called her name, threatening her, taunting her, clawing at her. And it never stopped. Not ever. Like a living, breathing being of darkness, death wrapped its tentacles around her, dragging her into ever deeper levels of hell.
Until she hardly knew if she were dead or alive. Even her mother had rejected her. Alice didn’t blame her.
How could you change the locks, Maman? Alice trudged down the cold, indifferent allée—four blocks from what used to be her home. She clenched her jaw. I’m not your daughter. I never will be again. The thought weighed on her and worked its way into the vast cavern where her heart used to be. She wouldn’t go home ever. There was no turning back.
Alice shivered and ran her fingers over her right arm, then her left. They felt heavy and cold. Like the arms of a corpse.
There was only one place to go now, back to the underpass alongside the Seine. Cops hated that homeless people shuffled along the river. But the shelters were full and in the homeless camps around Paris, drugs ran the day. Indeed, Alice wasn’t sure how long the prison of heroin had held her. Two years, three? Time stopped under the haze of heroin.
She shook harder now. The dull ache in her arms worked its way up through her bony shoulders and along her collarbones. Her legs hurt, too. Streaky pain from her hips to her knees and her knees to her ankles. A few more steps and the headache set in. Alice knew what this was. The feeling was as familiar as her name. Drug sick. She was drug sick.
Faster, she told herself. Move your feet.
And she did, as fast as she could until the group of tents came into view. Dirty, dilapidated, rain-beaten and sun-bleached. Yes. She was almost home. The only home she knew these days.
Already she could imagine the relief, sense the way her body was about to come to life again. Because someone would have the drug for her. The people of the underpass shared. Last week she’d bought the junk, so today her tent friends would step up. They all swapped needles, so Alice didn’t need one of those, either.