‘Um, okay.’
Chapter 3
Alice
Alice could only bring herself to go down to her mom’s kitchen when the light streaming into her bedroom window had turned golden and her body demanded food. She hadn’t had much to drink at the funeral, had barely cried, but her body felt like she’d been up sobbing all night. So much for the healthy approach of repressing tears so she didn’t get dehydrated as well as aggrieved – she had a headache anyway.
The stairs still didn’t have any creak to them. As a kid, when she and her mom had first moved to DC, Alice had made a game of how long she could go unnoticed walking around the early-2000s build. She wondered if that was part of why she preferred her ancient London flat: there was no hiding. The sounds provided constant proof that she was alive and present, which was apparently something her very literal brain needed.
Her mom was in the kitchen, microwaving canned soup. The choice of food suggested it was closer to lunchtime than breakfast, though with her mom, one could never know. She had always believed in food as cognitive fuel rather than something to be enjoyed.
‘Hi,’ Alice said, announcing her presence as she walked over to the fridge.
Her mom started, as though she’d forgotten Alice was home, when in fact she’d taken care to remind her several times of her visit. ‘Good afternoon, dear. Sleep well?’
‘Yeah, fine,’ she said, the lie slipping out automatically. She opened the freezer and scrounged through the shelves until she found the object of her search: two heels of bread. This freezer could always be counted on for a few of them. The heels had never been up to her mom’s standards. Little was, to be fair to the heels. ‘How about you?’
‘Well, yes, but I’ve been up and working for’ – she checked her watch as Alice inserted the bread into the toaster – ‘eight hours now.’
Alice winced, not sure if she’d meant it as a slight. She’d certainly made it clear to Alice throughout her childhood that productive people were the best kind of people, and they woke up early. The refrain had been repeated enough times that Alice had considered five hours of sleep a luxury in high school.
‘How has your afternoon been?’ Alice asked, chewing on her lip distractedly.
Her mom frowned. ‘Making my way through a grant application.’
Alice was always thankful when the family farce ended and they could talk to each other like colleagues. Most people probably didn’t speak to their parents like this. But most people didn’t share the singular experience of academia with both of their parents and not much else. Alice only saw her mother when she was in London for work anyway.
She rolled her eyes sympathetically. ‘Theworst.’
The microwave beeped and her mom removed the steaming bowl. ‘And how’s work?’
‘It’s going well,’ Alice said. ‘I’m hoping my dissertation will be done soon, so I’ll have to start job hunting to secure something by the spring.’
‘Are you thinking of teaching or research?’ her mom asked, sitting at the counter.
‘My advisor, Jeremy, has a connection at the Royal Botanical Society and wants to recommend me for a research position. That would be an ideal option for me, since they’re conducting some of the most groundbreaking work in the field.’
‘That’s nice,’ her mom said, but she looked as though her mind was already drifting back to the troublesome grant application. ‘I haven’t heard of it, but if your advisor thinks it’s a good fit, I’m sure he’s right.’
‘Yeah,’ she said feebly, not feeling the same sense of accomplishment and excitement she’d felt upon Jeremy first mentioning the possibility. But then again, her parents were math professors and didn’t know the significance of many of her accomplishments. That was why Oxford had been so important to Alice, why she had sacrificed her social life for it –Oxfordwas a language everyone understood. And while she didn’t wield it for attention in many places, she wasn’t above it when it came to her parents.
There was a long pause in which neither of them seemed to have anything to follow up with. ‘Have you heard from your father recently?’
Alice blew out a measured breath. ‘Yes. He sent a wedding invitation.’
Her mom’s eyebrows raised slightly. ‘Oh, he’s marrying her? I was never sure why it took him so long.’
Alice repressed the urge to roll her eyes in a much less sympathetic way than she had before. Her mom certainly knew that refusing to sign the divorce papers for years, long after her dad had had an affair with a grad student and gotten her pregnant, was the reason he hadn’t remarried sooner. When she’d moved to DC with Alice because she couldn’t bear to work at the same university as him anymore, it had seemed like she’d half expected him to realize his mistake and follow them. He hadn’t.
‘It’s probably simpler to be legally married, with the kids,’ Alice said, trying for a reassuring tone.
‘Yes,’ her mom said distantly. ‘David’s always been reasonable. So, are you going?’
She recoiled at the insinuation that she might be the kind of terrible daughter who would consider spitefully skipping her own father’s wedding to the woman who had destroyed their family. It wasn’t the sort of question her mom would normally ask, which meant the news must have shaken her. She felt guilty for bringing it up.
‘It depends,’ Alice hedged. ‘If my dissertation is done, the defense will conflict with the wedding.’
Her mom nodded. ‘Your father understands that school always comes first,’ she said, returning to her soup.
