There was such confidence, such finality, in T.J. Hewitt’s voice. As if she had a say over any of this, thought Alice. As if she were the employer of Alice, and not the other way around.
Alice breathed in. The mint in her mouth had dissolved completely. She took another from the dish and bit down before responding.
“It would mean a great deal to us,” she said. “I know you’re close with Barbara. I’m sure you’ve noticed that she’s been having—difficulty. Acting out. We think it would benefit her to be around some new friends.”
Well, Alice did, at least. Peter wasn’t certain. But there were so many reasons it made sense to let her go—not least of them that she would be out of the house for the party. The first one they’d thrown in fourteen years. They were having a hundredth-anniversary celebration for the Preserve, bringing two dozen friends and relatives to the grounds for a week in August. The last time they had had dinner guests in Albany, Barbara had emerged only once from her room. She’d been wearing a sort of—costume, really—her hair dyed some terrible color, her eyes lined heavily in black. Peter’s cousin Garland had burst out laughing, and Barbara had retreated, slammed the door. She’d kept the hair color and the eyeliner ever since, despite Alice’s exhortations.
They would have no such worries this time—if only Barbara could go.
T.J. looked down at the floor.
“Have you told her yet?” she said.
“About camp?” Alice said. “She’s the one who asked to go.”
“No,” said T.J. “About what’s happening in the fall.”
Alice paused. Shook her head.
“I’ll tell her at the end of the summer.”
Then, in a moment of inspiration: “I’ll tell her after the end of her session at camp.”
“Session’s underway,” T.J. said, in that way of hers.
“Just barely.”
“Cabins’re full.”
A slow incredulity was rising in Alice’s chest, and yet she also felt muted by something, unable to access her deepest reserves of rage, the ones she relied on with Peter when she really needed to be heard.
The pills, she remembered. The pills had their hooks in her, were loosening the tight knots in her shoulders, sending a flood of relief down her front and back, a waterfall of warmth and calm. Focus, she instructed herself.
She took in the objects in the room around her: a trick Dr. Lewis had taught her. Grandfather clock. Plants growing lushly. Stone-tiled sunroom floor.
She spoke again, careful to articulate. Her tongue was a fat slug in her mouth.
“You know Barbara as well as anyone does,” said Alice. Better than I do, she thought, against her will. “You know it will do her good.”
But T.J. was standing now, preparing to walk out of the room. If she’d had a hat she would have placed it on her head.
A whole summer, thought Alice. A whole summer without Barbara, her rages, her storms, the hours she spent weeping aloud, disturbing the staff. All of them pretending politely not to hear. But they did, every one of them, and Alice did too. How pleasant it would be to have these months all to herself, while just down the hill her daughter was removed, but safe. Occupied. Content.
“I’d better head back,” said T.J.
Alice smiled. The pills were dissolving her guard. There were words in the back of her mouth that she’d normally trap with her teeth. She had been doing that for most of her life, with Peter, with everyone. Usually, she was gifted in the art of shutting up.
Not today.
“It’s not really your choice,” said Alice. “It’s got to happen.”
“Or what,” said T.J., abruptly. Too loud, Alice thought. Why did everyone have to speak so loudly, all of the time.
Quiet: it was all that she wanted.
Alice opened her mouth. No words came out.
A minute passed, or maybe five. She felt sleep coming on. She knew she should have been embarrassed by her posture, the way her head was tilting to one side now—but that emotion, too, was inaccessible to her, abstract, something she understood conceptually but couldn’t feel.
“It’s Mr. Van Laar’s idea,” said Alice, at last. “It’s what he wants.”
It was a last resort. Embarrassing to have to use it. Embarrassing, she thought, that her own words were meaningless in this household.
T.J. looked at her. Deciding whether or not Alice could be believed. And then her expression changed into something resigned.
“Fine,” said T.J. “We’ll put a bunk in Balsam. She’ll start tomorrow.”
With no further questions, T.J. walked out of the room. Out of the house.
If Bear were here—
Alice stopped. She was not supposed to indulge these fantasies, said Dr. Lewis. Each time her mind drifted toward one, she was supposed to bring herself back to reality. And yet the vision came to her forcefully: if Bear were here, he would follow T.J. out the door. She closed her eyes, allowing herself—just for a moment—to remember her son, vibrant, delightful, trailing T.J. Hewitt all over the grounds. Tessie, Tessie. His high sweet voice, just on the other side of a thin curtain between her world and his. She could hear it easily.
• • •
On the chaise, Alice turned her head to watch through the windowed wall of the sunroom. T.J., departing, paused on the lawn, removed something from her pocket, put a hand to her mouth. Spat. Chaw, the men called it. A disgusting habit.
Alice watched the back of T.J. Hewitt until she was out of sight. Her form was tall and thin and graceful, and Alice reflected, not for the first time, that she could have been pretty.
