Upstairs, she said, Alice’s nightgown lay curled on the floor of her bedroom. Outside, there was not a sound in the neighborhood if you didn’t count the creak of the ice on the lake. She would have to call Governor Hodge or get into a cab herself and start to search. But where first? She felt cold and sleepy.
“And I thought, I just can’t tonight. I have done this so many nights. I just can’t.”
So she went back to her still-warm bed and pulled the covers over her eyes. When she woke again, the sun was up full. It was after eleven, and Becky relaxed when she shrugged into her robe and crossed back into the big kitchen at the main house, to the smell of coffee and the subtle sounds of a morning kitchen.
“Happy New Year,” she called out, but no one answered. Not Alice, but a man was standing hunched at the sink, Alice’s husband. He looked as though he’d been beaten up, his face red and blotchy, his white fisherman-knit sweater covered with black smudges, his pants wet to the knee. He asked Becky to sit down, then gave her a cup of coffee before he recounted what happened.
And after that, Becky just finished her tea without saying a word.
Stefan and I sat there waiting.
“What happened?” Stefan finally asked her. “I know what happened, but now I have to hear the rest, even though I really don’t want to hear…”
Becky interrupted him. She said, “Please give me a minute.” She added, “Some things get easier. This one doesn’t.”
At about eight that morning, police had spotted what appeared to be a red blanket on top of a snowbank a few hundred yards from Mickey’s Fishbowl Tavern. On closer inspection, it was a red wool coat. Alice had probably died a few hours before in cold so extreme that she had all but frozen solid. She almost certainly didn’t suffer at all: She would have been drunk and passed out. As I listened, I thought unavoidably of the lines from Emily Dickinson… As freezing persons recollect the snow, first chill, then stupor, then the letting go. The bartender had called Alzy a cab at closing time and watched her leave. He remembered her saying that, by this time next year, everything would be merry and bright. Those were the words she used. Who knows what happened next? It would not have taken very long for Alzy’s body temperature to plummet. At that point, the brain would no longer care. She would not have been thinking about all she was losing.
“Jesus,” Stefan said. “The words she said make it worse.”
The Hodges family invited Becky to stay on for a while, to ease any of the fallout, she said. They knew how much she loved Alzy, how dedicated she was to her. Their big hearts were cracking too. Eventually Becky found a new job, as a research librarian. A year passed, and then two and then three. Slowly, unable to forgive herself for her role in Alzy’s death, Rebecca began to look for an emotional way forward, a way to pay homage to her friend. She was still living in the carriage house; the main house remained empty. But she was determined not to ask the Hodges for anything more. Then recently, from Merry Betancourt’s newsletter at the Unitarian Church, she learned about Stefan’s Healing Project. And her idea for a way to make amends took form.
She would ask the Hodges if she could convert Alzy’s main house into a residence for women who were profoundly addicted but committed to recovery. She would house and treat ten at a time. She would call it The Alice Hodge Safe Home. For two years, each resident would have to perform every task of their day in partnership with another. Once these teams of two were in place, they could not be changed unless someone left the program. They would have no choice but to support each other. They had to go everywhere together, even to work. They would share cooking, cleaning, doing laundry. The rules would be absolute, a single offense would trigger a ban for both members with no possibility of reinstatement.
Becky would continue to live at the carriage house, in a supportive role, but the women would have to sustain each other—an experiment in healthy codependency. Their motto would be: No One Goes Alone. Rebecca had brought Stefan her plans for a pilot Safe Home program. What she needed was the wherewithal to finance the first two years while she actively sought public and private funding. After she received word of acceptance for her program from The Healing Project, Becky confided her plans to Alice’s family. She didn’t know if they would even approve of the idea. If they did not, she would withdraw her application and never raise the subject again.
They did approve.
“In fact, they gave me both the main house and the carriage house, outright. They even set up a foundation to pay the taxes. At first, I refused to take it. I said it wasn’t right. They said it was. I said it wasn’t. They said it was. Finally, Alma said, it’s the only right thing. I guess that convinced me. And now, I have to live up to it.”