“No relationship is perfect. It can’t be, not if human beings are involved. But that’s the beauty of love. Even if someone’s not perfect, you can still love them. You can love them more for it. That’s what you’ve given me with Mark. It’s what I want for you too.”
Alice wanted to be mad at her mother. She wanted to do something immature like throw that nostalgic egg cream in her face or just storm off. Her mother was right though. Her father was never perfect. As her mind drifted back to all those dinners where her mother spoke of her patients, she could see the look on his face. At the time she hadn’t understood it. Now, now she realized that it was frustration over her mother’s career, the way she provided for their family when he’d expected to be the patriarch of his home. And there were Saturdays on the beach when it was cold and her father would get after her for whining, or Sunday afternoons at Cold Spring Tavern that turned to evenings when Alice had homework, and her father would ignore her continued requests to go home, snapping when he said for the tenth time that they’d leave soon. No, her father wasn’t perfect, but she’d loved him. She still loved him.
“So it’s love then, with Mark?”
“It was always love. I just didn’t view it that way because it has such a different tenor than I had with your father. It’s quieter. Calmer. We never fight. Instead we negotiate. And when we want different things, we give each other space. We aren’t trying to be everything to each other.” Bobby’s food arrived, and she pushed it around her plate, absorbed in her thoughts. “Love won’t break you,” she finally added. “Even if the worst happens, you’ll survive it.”
Alice wasn’t sure she agreed. She could see how much her mother needed to share this wisdom with her, to think that in renewing her belief in love, she might be able to compel the same from her daughter.
So Alice just said, “I’m sorry I got mad earlier.” She nibbled her corn muffin, relieved when it was just as buttery and grainy as she remembered.
32
The Blue Book
Alice could not stop thinking about Gabby’s hummingbird tale, shelved in Madeline’s library. How was it there? What did it mean that it was purple? In her notebook Alice had written,Purple = Violence. Bruised and hateful ends. Yes, Gabby had been emotionally lacerated. Yes, Oliver was not a good partner for her, but he was more careless than violent. It seemed he never considered that his routine would hurt Gabby. Alice truly believed this, that he hadn’t meant it viciously. So had she been wrong about the meaning of the purple books?
This question, while pressing, was not as troubling as the inexplicable presence of Alice’s hummingbird tale among Madeline’s stories. One thing was perfectly clear. Madeline was still keeping something from her. So she ventured to the woods again, this time to demand answers.
When her car careened to the left, turning sharply onto Stagecoach Road, her thoughts were with Madeline, so much so that she did not register passing Cold Spring Tavern until it was in her rearview mirror. As it grew smaller, a warm sensation rose in Alice. Those hours she and her father spent there weren’t perfect, but they were good. Maybe that was better.
Alice banged on the brass knocker. There was no answer. She walked around the back of the house, where she was surprised to see the patio covered with leaves and debris as though no one had used it in some time. She pressed her face to the French doors and peered inside. The recessed lights were on, casting the kitchen in unnatural yellow. Alice tried the handle. It clicked open.
“Madeline?” she called. Only the ticking of the grandfather clock responded. As Alice walked down the hall, the ticking grew louder. Upstairs Madeline’s door was closed.
Alice stood outside, debating whether to barge in. Despite her frustration, her desire to confront Madeline about how and why she had Gabby’s story, Alice could not bring herself to open the door. She was scared of what she might find on the other side, Madeline’s lifeless body, perhaps no one at all. She marched down the hall toward the library. Madeline was not the sole source of answers in the house.
In the secret library everything was just as Alice had left it. Door thrown wide, piles of books across the floor, Gabby’s open at the center of the room. The cats circled the books, stalking them, braving a sniff, before settling onto the piles. Acton nestled into the small space on the purple shelf and fell asleep. Alice lifted Gabby’s book from the floor. In the warmth of her hands, it shifted to red again. Did this mean Oliver was not the end of her story? That her best friend was not about to give up on love?
Alice looked up at the shelves that remained out of reach. The books no longer seemed inaccessible. She spotted footholds and ledges she could use to scale her way to the top. When she climbed onto the first shelf, it creaked in protest, bowed slightly, but didn’t give. The sound roused the cats. They stood tall, spines arched, hair raised.
They remained on guard as she ascended shelf after shelf until she could reach the top row of books where Gabby’s hummingbird story had been. She stretched out her arm to push the books off the shelf, and they crashed to the floor below. It felt like a physical blow, the violence of it, the reckless way she treated the books. The cats jumped back, then inched forward, inspecting the objects like they were birds fallen dead from the sky.
Alice laid these books from the highest shelves in a circle around her. Sure enough, they were stories of sea glass, natural pools of mud, unsightly peaches. They were here, all the stories she’d written.
Among her books she spotted one that was blue. It was the only color she and Madeline had not investigated. In the other colors they’d seen lasting love (red), love that ran its course (yellow), love destroyed by jealousy and envy (green), and love that was fueled by hate (purple). They’d seen so many ways for love to end; there had to be other ways for it to persist.
Alice sat on the floor with the blue book in her lap, noticing several enlarged veins spidering up her bare calves. Even before she opened it, she knew its first sentence would describe an aisle that never seemed to end, a butterfly betrothing a bride to herself. She thought of her mother and Mark, the love they’d found with each other later in life. Theirs was a love more affectionate than passionate, a companionship more than a romance. Without investigating the other blue books, she wroteBlue = a cool and steady lovein her notebook.
Across the library floor there were far more blue books than there were red. Before becoming a love scribe, Alice would not have considered that cool steadiness a form of love. Now it seemed like the most natural kind, one steeped in respect and admiration. She was glad she’d written a story for Bobby, glad she’d chosen to believe in her gift. Love would not break her mother. It wouldn’t break countless couples in these stories either, but she wasn’t convinced that meant she should continue writing. Even if there weren’t very many purple stories, even if most of the green tales had further chapters that weren’t about jealousy or envy, even if the heat of yellow had tempered without an explosion, she did not want to be part of anyone’s pain. No, Madeline had won their bet. Alice would honor the deal they made.
A chill like a feather tickled the back of Alice’s neck, and she expected to find the old woman standing in the doorway, a twisted smile across her face as though this had been her plan all along. Alice could feel her presence, yet when she glanced up, there was no one there. At that moment, she knew with full certainty that Madeline was gone.
33
The Water That Isn’t There
Before Alice sat down to be painted, Joe had her do acting warmups. They spoke of Peter Piper as fast as they could and tossed an invisible ball back and forth with growing intensity. Joe had her shake out her limbs, and Alice flopped awkwardly.
“You call that a shake?” Joe said. “Pretend you just crawled out of a vat of termites. Good, now when I say stop, don’t think, just sit.”
“Will you turn around?” Alice asked, waving her arms like she was trying to dance. “I want you to see me comfortable, but I don’t want you to see me getting comfortable.”
Joe looked away, and just when her movement was starting to have a rhythm to it, he called, “Stop.”
Alice dropped to the stool, crossing her right leg over her left even though she usually crossed her left over her right. Her left hand disappeared beneath her right forearm as her right hand dangled.
“Okay,” she called, and he spun around, his face glowing like she’d just tried on the perfect wedding dress.
