Alice can see Van’s mouth moving over the syllables ofgrasshole,but before she can ask, said kids come up to them.
Hazel immediately pulls on Isabella’s hand, and Isabella sweeps her up onto her hip. Sebastian is staring hard at Van, his iPad dangling from his hand. “Are you a boy or a girl?”
“Sebastian!” Isabella’s eyes go wide as she shushes him. “That’s not polite—”
“It’s okay,” Van says, crouching down to look at Sebastian with a slight wince. “What’s your name?”
“Sebastian.”
“Sebastian. That’s a cool name. My name is Van. Like a minivan.”
Sebastian giggles, clearly as enraptured with Van as his auntie is.
“I’m a girl,” Van says, “but that doesn’t really matter, does it? Because no matter if you’re a girl or a boy or both or neither, you can still have friends and eat snacks and play games and have fun, right?”
Sebastian seems to be considering for a while. No one says anything, letting him chew on it. Finally he nods a little bit, clearly approving of this new information. “Wanna see my room?”
“Oh heck yes.” Van goes to stand up but she wobbles a little bit, sinking back down immediately. Alice grabs onto her arm, her fingers slipping on the wet, slick surface of her raincoat as she helps tug Van back upright. “Thanks,” Van says, studiously not making eye contact with Alice. She quickly toes out of her boots and Sebastian offers her his hand. She takes it, wordlessly following him as he leads her into the house, givingher a grand tour that he certainly didn’t offer Alice.
“Well,” Isabella says, watching them go. “I guess Sebastian’s a fan.” Hazel starts wiggling, and the instant Isabella puts her down, she toddles as quickly as she can after Van and Sebastian. Isabella laughs. “Got it, make that two fans.”
Alice laughs because she should, and also because some part of her is relieved to see someone else falling so quickly under Van’s spell. It makes her feel better; yes, she’s hopelessly bisexual but also Van is clearly as magnetic as Hazel’s tiles.
Alice listens to the sounds of Sebastian narrating his room to Van, and she’s never been jealous of a preschooler before but she is now. She wishes she could be the one hand in hand with Van, showing off her bedroom and all her favorite things, the sole focus of Van’s steady gaze and warm, easy smile.
Ten
It takes half an hour to extract Van from Sebastian’s clutches, but they finally succeed through a winning combination of bribery (Legos) and distraction (more Legos!). The promised fifteen-minute drive to Portland Grace later, and Alice and Van are stepping inside the ICU, raincoats dripping. Babs and Marie are sitting in Nolan’s hospital room, which looks different today. The mug from his fraternity is prominently displayed on the little table next to his bed now, plus what looks like every single other personal item from his office. The bobbleheads, even a stress ball that Alice is absolutely sure he got from some mandatory HR training. Aunt Sheila had pulled it out of the back of one of his desk drawers with a crow of triumph most suitable for a win on the battlefield, and is now clearly showing it off like some kind of trophy.
Finally,the décor shouts to Alice.Some tiny indication that he’s a person and not just a finance bro robot!It’s like Babs and Aunt Sheila have created a shrine to the person they think he is, butsince it’s populated only with these few meaningless bits and bobs from his office, it has the opposite effect on Alice. Without his suits and his job and his diplomas and his women…Alice still has no idea who Nolan actually is, and she’s becoming worried that maybe it’s not aboutwhenshe learns more about him, butifshe does. If there’s actually anything more to learn, or if she’s seen what there is to see, and this meager shrine is the best anyone could do for him.
Alice wonders what would be in her hospital room if the roles were reversed. What would Isabella pull out of her studio to cozy up the sterilized space around her bed? The dusty paperbacks from her side table, the old Christmas ornaments from her mom, her favorite big blue mug, the photos of her and her parents smiling, back before the fire?
Is there anyone whose life wouldn’t look pathetic, distilled down into depressing hospital decorations?
There’s one other big change in the room: Nolan’s comatose form is now covered with what looks like a hand-knit blanket, which Babs keeps stroking as she sits by his head. The blanket is bursting with color—all deep reds and bright yellows and liquid blues—and it should make the room feel brighter but all Alice can focus on is how it makes Nolan look paler.
Ideally he’d be getting pinker and pinker each day, but his face still has that grayish, ashen sheen she remembers all too well from her dad’s last few months. It’s not a super alive color, and honestly the blanket is making it worse.
“I love this blanket,” Alice gushes to Babs. She’s very purposely technically not lying about being his girlfriend, but she’s definitely cool with lying about other shit. A girl has to get by somehow, right?
“Thank you, honey,” Babs says, looking up with those bigeyes that Alice is pretty sure haven’t been fully clear of tears since Nolan collapsed five days ago. “I knitted it when I was pregnant with him.”
Alice tries not to picture it. Young Babs, curled up on a couch, knitting around her enormous belly, hoping her child will turn out to be worthy of these bright, vivid colors, to be as bold and warming as this blanket.
Nolan doesn’t strike Alice as a bright-colors person—he’s always worn very traditional suits to work, and his office was basically monochrome. He feels more like an expensive slate-gray cashmere blanket than this riot of handmade color.
This blanket feels a lot more like Van than like Nolan.
But, then again, what the fuck does Alice know? Never having actually talked to him or anything.
“It’s beautiful,” Alice says. “What a wonderful gift.”
“I have mine in my dorm,” Marie says. “It’s water themed.”
Babs gives her youngest a sad smile. “My little Marina.”
Alice blinks. Okay, so Marie’s name is maybe Marina? Seems like a weird time to be learning Marie’s actual name, but okay. Sure. Marie’s a cute nickname for Marina.
