“I’ll give you two some time. Want anything from the cafeteria? Soggy lettuce sandwich?” Her eyes were kind. Alice shook her head. The woman dug into her bag for her wallet, took out a twenty-dollar bill, and then put the wallet back. “Be right back.”
As soon as she was gone, Alice opened the card from her father—his penmanship was nearly hieroglyphic, but Alice could make out what it said—Al, welcome back. You’ll get used to it. Happy birthday, again. Love, Dad.It wasn’t what she wanted it to say—maybe,Surprise! I’m awake! Just faking you out!OrThere’s a secret key hidden under the bed; find it and you can turn me back on, like a wind-up toy.Alice shoved the note in its envelope and slid it into her back pocket. “Come on, Dad, a little help would have been nice,” she said to him.
Alice reached into the hugging woman’s bag, grabbed her wallet, and flipped it open. The name on the driver’s license was Deborah Fink—the photo was easily a decade old, and Deborah had been slimmer then, with hair that was still brown curling to her shoulders. The address listed was on West 89th Street, just a few blocks south of Pomander. Alice had probably walked past her a thousand times, maybe even sat next to her on the M104 going up or down Broadway.
•••
A doctor knocked and poked her head in. Alice froze as if she’d been caught shoplifting. The doctor was a tall Black woman with a stethoscope. The stethoscope had a little toy koala clinging to it, which Alice thought made her look like a pediatrician. Everyone would like doctors more if they always looked like pediatricians. Alice wished for a box of stickers and small toys, prizes for having accomplished something scary or difficult.
“Oh, hi,” Alice said, stuffing the wallet back into Deborah’s bag,poking herself with a knitting needle in the process. “Ouch. I’m fine.” She held out her hand and shook the doctor’s freshly sanitized hand.
“I’m Dr. Harris, doing rounds today. You’re Leonard’s daughter?” Dr. Harris pumped more sanitizer out of the dispenser on the wall and rubbed her palms together as she talked.
Alice nodded.
The doctor slid into the room. It was amazing to watch how comfortable people could be with illness, with bodies that were failing to do what they were supposed to do. But of course this was what bodies were supposed to do—fail. It was Alice who had things wrong and was trying to swim against the current. “I spoke to your stepmother yesterday, and will check back in with her today. Your dad is stable, for now. But I do want to send the palliative care doctors in to talk to you two and to give you a sense of what’s coming, and how to just make sure he stays comfortable. I think that pretty soon we’ll talk about a move to the hospice floor.” Dr. Harris paused. “Are you okay?”
Alice was not okay. “Sure,” Alice said. “You know.”
“I do.” Dr. Harris looked at Leonard. “He’s been a real fighter, your dad. He’s a strong man.”
“Thank you,” Alice said. Dr. Harris gave a tight smile and left, pausing outside to write a note on the whiteboard.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Alice said. “I liked your version better. Healthy and beautiful and living on Pomander.” She lowered her voice. “I got married. I have two children. I don’t know if I have a job. How do I find out if I have a job? I don’t know how this works, Dad. I should have asked more questions.”
Leonard made a noise—discomfort or pain or just an involuntary dream noise, Alice couldn’t tell. She leaned over and cupped her hand over his. “Dad, can you hear me? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But I’m here, I’m back. It’s me.” Leonard’s tongue moved inside his mouth, like a parrot’s. “I was there, and now I’m here and everything’s differentand I don’t know what the fuck is going on.” This part felt the same—like she was trying to talk to her father from the other side of a giant chasm. No one was going to catch every word, and whatever needed to be said better have been said already. It wasn’t like the people who sat beside their estranged loved ones’ deathbeds, waiting on a single apology, the code to a safe full of love and tenderness. Alice and her father had always been such good friends. It was luck, she knew, plain luck, that gave some families complementary personalities. So many people spent their lives wishing to be understood. All Alice wanted was more time.
There was a whooshing sound like a shower curtain opening—Deborah was back, carrying potato chips and a Snickers bar and two coffees.
“For you,” she said. “Take your pick.”
Alice wiped at her eyes, and then plucked the coffee from Deborah’s left hand. “Stepmother,” she said.
Deborah waved her free hand, which knocked the potato chips to the floor. Both women bent down to pick them up, knocking into each other in the narrow space beside Leonard’s bed.
“Oh, please, honey,” Deborah said. “You know I’m just your Debbie.”
“I always wanted him to find someone,” Alice said. “I really did.”
“I know that,” Deborah said. Debbie. Her stepmother, Debbie, who called herhoney.“He never would have asked me out if it weren’t for you.”
“Can I have the Snickers, too?”
“It’s still your birthday as far as I’m concerned, love. You can have it all.” Debbie trudged forward until the toes of their shoes were touching, then stretched up to kiss Alice on the forehead. She smelled like warm milk and bad coffee and jasmine perfume. Alice thought of all the articles she’d ever read, and the self-help books, every stupid pieceof advice about women having it all, and how only counting the things that one was trying to balance in a single life was actually a cosmic lowballing. She’d never even considered all the things she could have, or all the things she couldn’t.
“I’ll try,” Alice said.
40
Tommy said that the party was going to be casual, but then he said that the caterers were arriving at four to set up by six, and the bartender was coming at five, but the booze had already been delivered, and when people in crisp white shirts and black vests started arriving, Alice knew that she and Tommy had different definitions of the wordcasual. Alice remembered some things—she remembered wanting the party. She always wanted a party, and then didn’t enjoy it.
Her closet was incredible: not quite Cher Horowitz’s motorized racks fromClueless, but not far off. In addition to all the vintage dresses, many of which she recognized, and the stack of blue jeans, the walk-in closet was overflowing with expensive, well-made designer things that she never could have afforded on her salary at Belvedere.Okay,Alice thought. This was more like it—this was the fun part of time travel, this was a scene she knew. Alice pawed through them like a contestant onSupermarket Sweep. She kept the closet door open and went back and sat on her bed. She wanted to know who was coming to the party—Alice opened her email and began to scroll. It was mostlyjunk, as ever. She searchedBelvederein her inbox, and about a thousand messages appeared—about vaccination forms, about school fundraisers, about holiday gifts for teachers.
“Fucking hell, I’m aparent,” Alice said to herself. Not just a parent, but a Belvedere parent. There was a range of parents, of course, but the range was a puddle, not a river. Leonard had always stuck out like a sore thumb in his T-shirts and clunky sneakers, but he made enough money that people simply excluded him, instead of looking down on him. Alice had had lots of friends at Belvedere who taught and sent their kids—Melinda had; so had most other parents on staff. It was a huge perk, a massively reduced tuition for the children of faculty and staff, though Alice knew from some of her friends that the reduction had gotten less massive over time. Those were the school parents she liked. The other ones—the full-ticket-price parents, as she and Emily would refer to them—were not.
But she knew what they looked like. Alice pulled a few dresses out of her closet—drapey ones, snug ones, ones with elaborate beading and even a few stray feathers—and laid them across the bed. It was like playing dress-up in her own life. At least, this version of her life.
Dorothy toddled in to check on her and immediately ran a jam-covered hand across the bedspread and toward one of the dresses, a beige thing that looked right for a very, very rich nun.
