Alice
October 1988–March 1995
When Alice was five years old, Julia said, “I think you’re old enough to know the truth. Your father died in a car accident last year.”
For the rest of her life, Alice would remember this moment, down to the smallest detail. They were sitting at their square kitchen table in their apartment on East 86th Street. Alice’s hair was in braids, because her mother said she didn’t keep it tidy enough when it was down. She was wearing her favorite mustard-colored corduroy skirt and eating cereal. Julia bought Cheerios because they were healthy, but Alice always added a tablespoon of sugar to her bowl.
Alice put down her spoon and said, “Oh.” Her hands felt tingly, so she tucked them underneath her legs. She noticed that her mother didn’t look sad.
“Does Grandma Rose know?”
Her mother raised her eyebrows. She was wearing a suit—this one was pale lavender with a small gold chain across the breast pocket—and her Monday-to-Friday makeup. Alice’s mother was very beautiful; everyone said so. Mrs. Laven, who was friends with her grandmother and lived down the hall, called Julia Gorgeous as if it were her name. Alice also knew that her mother was skeptical about her own beauty. Julia’s hair always upset her; whenever she passed a mirror, she tried to reshape it with her hands. “You’re so lucky you don’t have these curls, Alice,” she would say, at least three times a week. Alice had long, straight, pale hair that was neither quite blond nor brown. She thought her hair was boring compared to her mother’s, which moved around as if it had its own plans for the day. Julia wore her hair up at work so it couldn’t embarrass her.
“Of course Grandma Rose knows.” Julia took a sip of her coffee. She didn’t eat breakfast but drank three coffees before lunch. “Don’t mention it to her on the phone, though. She won’t want to talk about it, and you know what she’s like when she’s upset.”
Alice nodded, even though this confused her. She didn’t think of Grandma Rose getting upset, certainly not in a way that was scary or to be avoided. Alice and her mother visited Grandma Rose once a year at her condo in Florida. Her grandmother raised her voice and threw her arms around while telling stories about grown-ups Alice didn’t know, but Grandma Rose seemed to enjoy that. Getting worked up was part of Grandma Rose’s day, like brushing her teeth or sitting on her tiny balcony. Alice had always found her grandmother’s agitation comforting. It made her feel safe, because she knew if someone was ever mean to her, Grandma Rose would let them have it.
Alice became aware that her mother was watching her carefully, so she straightened in her chair.
“I know that you never knew your father,” Julia said, “but I didn’t want to keep this from you. This doesn’t affect us, though, right? It’s always been just you and me, baby girl. We don’t need anyone else.”
Alice nodded again. Every night when her mother tucked her in, the last thing Julia said before switching off the light was: “It’s you and me forever, baby.”
Alice finished her cereal, then she and her mother walked around the corner to Alice’s school, and her mother continued on to work. The news swirled through Alice all day. It felt important, even though she couldn’t have said why. In a way, it was like her mother had handed her a father and then taken him away in one sentence. Before this, Alice had been vaguely aware that she had a father, but he was almost never mentioned. Her mother had told Alice once that he hadn’t wanted a family, and that was all she’d known until now. Perhaps Alice had been unconsciously waiting for news about her father this whole time. It was like a question inside her had been answered. At the age of five, she didn’t carry around many questions, so that made this a big day.
In the schoolyard, she told her best friend, Carrie, “My father died.”
Her friend’s mouth opened in surprise. Carrie made this face a lot, because she was surprised a lot. Alice would keep track, while she and Carrie grew up, of the life events that didn’t surprise her friend, because this was a much shorter list.
“I didn’t know you had a dad,” Carrie said.
“He lived in Chicago.”
“Chicago.” Carrie said the name like it was its own surprise. “I didn’t know that. You never met him?”
“Not since I was a baby.”
“Do you need a hug?”
Alice nodded, and she and Carrie hugged until the bell rang and they filed into their kindergarten classroom.
After that, Alice took an interest in fathers. She wondered what distinguished them from mothers and if a child actually needed one. There were mostly mothers and nannies at drop-off and pickup from school, but there would be an occasional dad, and Alice would study him closely. A few dressed like the fathers on television, in neat suits, holding briefcases. Sometimes a dad picked up his child and swung him or her around in a circle, and Alice had never seen a mother do that. Julia certainly never wrestled with her the way Alice watched a dad play-wrestle with his son by the jungle gym one afternoon. Carrie’s dad was the only father Alice knew personally, though he rarely remembered Alice’s name. He called every child, other than his daughter, kiddo. He wore thick glasses and flannel shirts and generally didn’t seem to notice the little girls when they were in the apartment, as if they were too short to enter his field of vision. He was in charge of breakfast—he wore a deadly serious expression while he flipped pancakes—and he was responsible for taking out the garbage, but those were his only specific roles as far as Alice could tell.
Alice felt no need for a father, personally; her life was peaceful and happy. Julia came into Alice’s room every morning and woke her up by whispering, “Good morning, baby girl,” and in the evenings they made dinner together while watching Jeopardy! on the small television in their kitchen. Alice’s job was to make the salad, and she did so while standing on a stool by the counter. Julia took off her heels, suit jacket, and earrings before she entered the kitchen, and this softened version of her mother—all the buttons and sharp points gone—made Alice act like the silliest version of herself. The game show questions were usually too difficult for Alice to understand, but she would say a nonsense answer in such a confident voice that Julia would double over with laughter. Fridays were always “girls’ nights,” and the mother and daughter spent the whole week discussing which movie they would rent from the Blockbuster store on the corner. They watched the film while wearing fuzzy robes and painting their nails. If Julia had a date on Saturday night, Mrs. Laven and Alice would order Chinese food and then play Chutes and Ladders, which was their favorite board game. Most Sundays, Julia and Alice went for a walk in Central Park and bought giant pretzels from their favorite vendor, a Nigerian man named Bou who knew that Julia liked extra mustard on hers. Every day of their week had a regular cadence and routine, and Alice liked them all.
* * *
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One Friday in third grade, Alice’s teacher, an older woman named Mrs. Salisbury—who frowned at the class all day as if it were an integral part of her pedagogy—told Alice to stay in the classroom after the final bell. Mrs. Salisbury left the room, and then returned with Alice’s mother. Julia, in her elegant business suit and high heels, looked out of place and uncomfortable amid the sea of tiny desks. She and Mrs. Salisbury seemed like an unlikely pair of adults. Mrs. Salisbury had a headful of giant gray curls that she had set once a week at the hair salon. They looked like waves that would never crash; you could see through the center of them, and they didn’t move.