Page 75 of The Homemaker
“I talked to Vera this morning, and the women seem to be having a great time. I think we should head to the country club, get in eighteen holes, and spend the rest of the afternoon drinking. They’re setting off fireworks later.”
Hunter’s suggestion hangs in the air as I silently beg Alice to look at me again, but she just turns and floats back to the kitchen as if her conscience has no gravity.
“Put in thirty years of marriage, and you can have an Alice, too.” Hunter smirks, catching me watching Alice.
“I appreciate the offer,” I say, ignoring his comment about Alice, “but I need to catch up on work before Blair returns.”
“I thought you were catching up yesterday.”
I sip my coffee, buying a little time. “Sadly, one day wasn’t enough.”
“Fine. I’ll give you the day but meet me for dinner at the country club.”
I nod because it sounds like a demand, not a question.
Hunter’s phone rings, and he squints at the screen before mumbling, “What now?”
As he answers the call, I use it as an excuse to step into the kitchen.
Alice glances over her shoulder while arranging flowers in a vase. “Can I get you something forbreakfast?”
I lean my backside against the island, hands resting on the edge of the counter.
When I don’t answer, she takes a second glance back at me. This time, she pauses her hands.
“I was in a mental hospital for fourteen months,” she says, facing the vase again, cutting another stem and tucking it into the arrangement. “PTSD. Depression. Severe anxiety. Suicide ideation. But that was then. This is now. Sometimes life sucks; sometimes it doesn’t. It’s good to see you. It’s even better to see that you’re in a good place.”
She piles the discarded stems into the small bucket and turns, hands folded in front of her. “I’m in a good place too.”
Jesus Christ.
My physical response remains masked behind clenched teeth. She was in a mental hospital for fourteen months? What the hell? And now she’s good, and supposedly I’m good? That’s it?
I swallow past the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry,” I whisper because I don’t know what to say, and I don’t want to make it about me, but I have all these feelings and questions, and I don’t know what to do with them.
After a pause, as if she’s waiting for me to say more, she nods slowly. “Thanks. I’m sorry too.” She drops her gaze to the floor for a second, but then the oven timer buzzes.
I return to the dining room while running both hands through my hair. When Hunter glances up at me, I hide my pain behind a fake smile. I’m a fucking wreck.
For eight years, I’ve thought about Alice. Only in my dreams did I imagine seeing her again. Now, she’s here, canningtomatoes and pickling onions between loads of laundry. And I’m holed up in the bedroom, trying to get caught up on work, but my mind is shit.
Eight years, and here we are.
This is insane. Hunter is at the club. Vera and Blair are in New York. It’sjustthe two of us under the same roof, and I feel like a hostage, gagged and unable to speak, afraid of knowing all the details, and equally afraid of not knowing. I lean back in my chair and stare at the cursor blinking on my screen. Then I fixate on the hummingbird, taking nectar from the feeder outside the window.
After the bird flies away, I wad up a piece of paper and shoot it at Blair’s yellow leather tote across the room. It lands inside, so I try it again. But I can’t focus on anything for more than a minute or two.
Something taps the floor and my gaze flits to the open doorway and the plate with cookies and milk that appear out of nowhere. I lumber from my chair and peek around the corner as Alice sashays in the opposite direction, her pink dress hitting just below her knees, and her wedged shoes making her calves look sexier than ever.
“I refuse to snack alone,” I say.
She stops. “You’re not alone. You have your work.”
I feel weak and emasculated. Anything but brave. I want to know who Chris is or was. Why it took her fourteen months to recover from hydroplaning? What was in the water, if not this Chris person? Did she try to find me?
“I need help,” I say.
Alice turns. “I don’t know how to write instruction manuals.”
