Most things in the kitchen looked the same. That was the truth of living in one place for decades, if you were like Leonard—the things you bought once upon a time, on a whim or just because you needed a step stool and so you bought the first one you saw at Laytner’s Linen, well, that was just what you had. Leonard had never cared about interior design, or design of any kind whatsoever. But there was something different about the kitchen, and it took Alice a few moments of standing still to figure out what it was.
There were no ashtrays.
Alice looked on the table, and there was none. She looked on the kitchen counter. The house smelled like lavender and soap. She turned to the fridge and put her hand on the handle, but then stopped—there was a photo of her stuck to the door with a magnet Leonard had had all her life, a circular NASA logo that they’d bought at a museum when she was a little girl.
The photo looked like a holiday card—professionally photographed and printed on thick card stock. Happy New Year! it read, in large gold letters. In the photograph, Alice was holding Leo and Dorothy on her lap, the former clutching a toy truck in his fat little hand. Tommy stood behind them, cupping his hands around Alice’s shoulders like a bad masseur.
The front door creaked, and Alice jumped. “Dad!” she said, and turned around, her heart beating fast.
“Um, no?” a small voice said. A skinny girl wearing blue jeans and an enormous sweatshirt waved at her from the doorway. “I’m Callie, from next door? I’m taking care of Ursula while Leonard—your dad—is in the hospital.”
“Right,” Alice said. She swallowed. “Hi, Callie. Thank you. I just fed Ursula, but I’m sure she’d love nothing more than to have you pet her for a while.”
“Okay,” Callie said, still standing in the doorway.
Alice touched the card on the fridge, covering her own face with the pad of her pointer finger. “Right, thanks,” she said, and ducked out the door. Visiting hours started at eleven, so she couldn’t go straight uptown. Alice looked at the keys in her hand and started walking back toward the San Remo. She couldn’t quite bring herself to think of it as home.
38
The children yelped when Alice walked in the apartment’s front door. That’s nice, Alice thought, a welcoming committee. She had thought a lot about the downsides of parenthood—sleepless nights, diapers, a lifelong commitment of love and support—but she had not spent very much time pondering the benefits.
“I’m hopping in the shower, then I’ll be right there!” Alice called out. She’d always lived alone, and it occurred to her now that she’d always been just a little bit lonely, on top of enjoying her quiet and her space and her freedom. In the bathroom, Alice locked the door, not ready for the full-throttle intimacy that Tommy took for granted, and tried calling Sam, but instead of leaving a message when she didn’t pick up, Alice sent a text. Would really love to talk, please give me a call when you can.
A few things that were different about Alice’s body: Her nipples were larger and darker, one more so than the other. Her stomach was soft and domed slightly toward her pelvis, her skin pockmarked with silvery dots and short lines, like a message in Morse code that read I’ve had two babies. It felt like a game, or a puzzle in the back of a magazine—Spot the Difference! Her hair was shorter, and Alice could tell it was a more expensive cut than she’d ever had before—the color was what her natural color had been in the summertime when she was a kid, sun-kissed and blond, but it was October, and she hadn’t been this blond in two decades. The shampoo choices were expensive, with artistic packaging, and Alice knew for a fact that the giant container of body soap cost fifty dollars. She still didn’t know what Tommy did for a living. Part of her knew, of course, but not the part that was currently driving the boat. Alice had so many questions for her father. Had he quit smoking, just because she’d asked? What had happened to her other life, the one she had before? Was that one still happening, without her, or had she pushed the reset button on the whole world? That seemed like too big of a responsibility. He’d been smiling, hadn’t he, when he told her how things worked?
When Alice was clean and dry and dressed, she wandered back out into the living room, where she found the children and a strange woman—Sondra?—at the kitchen table, working on something. But of course only Alice was a stranger here, not this woman.
“Look, Mommy! Sondra helped!” Leo said. He whipped something off the table and ran it over to her. It was a folded sheet of construction paper with a pointy crayoned heart on the front and LEO in big letters on the inside.