“As long as you need,” I say, suddenly feeling sorry for her and the fact that she still can’t seem to get her life together. “But can you please sleep in my guest room? You’re ruining my pillows.”
“Thanks,” she responds, giving a small nod of her head, but I can tell by the tone in her voice that even her lifestyle is starting to wear thin.
We sit silently for a few minutes before Alice turns to me and smiles weakly.
“Do you write what you love?” she asks me, looking down at my arm.
“What do you think?” I ask back.
Alice shakes her head knowing this is not where I expected to find myself. It wasn’t like I didn’t try to become a writer. I did, but it proved far more difficult than I thought and I eventually took a job writing descriptions of items for a well known website and catalog company that sells high-end cookware. I’m still there today.
“Sometimes life gets in the way of the things you love and you have no other option but to give in,” I tell her, my voice sullen.
“Is that why you’re still trying to find him?” she asks, but this time there’s no insinuation in her tone, no judgment.
“Maybe.”
“I really do want to help you,” Alice adds and I smile at her, but it doesn’t reach my eyes. Discussing it out loud, not just the situation with Elliot but also my job has made my life sound far more depressing than it should be.
“Why?”
“Because everyone needs something to believe in and right now, I have nothing,” she says and it breaks my heart.
“That’s not true, Alice,” I say, trying to ease her fears and my own, but I know it’s a lie.
“It is true. You said it yourself, I’m thirty-two years old, sleeping on your couch; I can’t keep a job and I’ve had a string of bad marriages. Sounds like a stellar life so far.” She stops and runs her hand through her hair, looking at me, she shakes her head and says, “I want to help you because I feel like if you’ve held out this long, there’s still some hope out there.”
“Or I’ve lost my fucking mind.”
The three days go by in a blink and before I know it, Alice and I are on our way out of New York heading back to Boston.
“So how does this work?” she asks, already bothering me with her obsessive need to touch everything in my car. Her hands paw at the radio and flip the vents open and close as the air conditioning blasts too high for my liking but any lower causes complaints from Alice.
“How does what work?” I question back, wondering what the hell she’s even referring to. With Alice only god knows what’s going on in her head.
“This whole operation Find Elliot thing you’ve got going on,” she says casually, shrugging her shoulders. “You’ve never really told me what you do during this time.”
I guess I’ve never really discussed it with anyone. I worry about the judgment it will bring when I explain the ludicrousness of what I’m doing, what I’ve been doing for almost twelve years. Or maybe I just realize how embarrassing it is to admit it out loud.
For all I know Elliot has long since forgotten me. He’s probably married with a beautiful wife and kids, living in the suburbs of San Diego enjoying his life. All things I probably should have done myself.
It’s not like I didn’t have options. I was engaged once, several years ago to a perfectly acceptable man, but he was just that, acceptable. And I felt like I was not only lying to him, but to myself by marrying him knowing I was still harboring feelings for Elliot.
I tried moving on, yet something about each new guy I met felt wrong, like I was cheating myself out of something great.
I take a deep breath, figuring we have a few hours till we hit Boston, I might as well fill her in since she’s opted to join me on this idiotic quest for something that probably no longer exists.
“I stop off at Dad’s and stay for a day or two, hanging out with him and making dinner. Then I drive across the country following any leads the PI I hired has found in hopes of finding Elliot.” I say it like it’s completely normal, like it doesn’t sound stalkerish or borderline crazy.
Lucky for me, Alice is as crazy as they come and while I’m sure she’s secretly judging me in her head, she acts like nothing I’ve said seems at all off.
“Sounds good,” she replies. “Can we stop at Kane’s?”
I laugh out loud wondering if this is the real reason she’s decided to join me.
“Of course. I’ll pay you in donuts for your help.”
“Yes,” Alice says cheerfully, tossing a hand up in the air.
The car falls silent and I ask the one question I know she’s been waiting for, but doesn’t want to answer.
“When was the last time you were home?”
“I don’t know,” she says, but I know that isn’t true. She knows exactly when the last time was, because it was the time our father finally told her he was done supporting her. While I truly believe he had her best interests at heart, he crushed her and she left bitter and angry.
“That’s bullshit,” I tell her, flatly.
“It was five years ago.”
I didn’t realize it had been that long. Whenever I’d visit my dad, he’d ask how Alice was, and I was always vague in my answers. I knew he didn’t want to know that while I had created a life for myself in New York, Alice was still out “finding herself.” I know he blames himself for enabling her for all those years and the guilt was even worse when he eventually called it quits.
Alice begins to fidget in the seat, picking at the skin around her fingernails, kicking off her shoes and changing positions multiple times before letting out a long huff.
“He’ll forgive you, Alice. He’s our dad.”
“I know. But he shouldn’t.”
A few hours later we pull into the driveway of the home we both grew up in. The home where we lost our mother, the home where Alice was told she was no longer welcome, and I know by bringing her with me, it can go one of two ways. I’m hoping today we find our father ready to forgive her.
He steps out onto the front porch, a smile on his face, wearing a Boston Red Sox t-shirt and holding two cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon, a tradition we started when I was finally old enough to drink.
“The game’s on,” he calls. “Bottom of the third.”
I find everything about him comforting: his lazy smile, his disheveled hair, his obsessive love for the Red Sox, but most of all, his love for me.
I watch his smile fade as Alice steps out of the car, and I can’t decide if he’s angry or shocked at what I’ve done.
“Hi, Dad,” she says, giving him a slight wave and a feeble smile.
He waits momentarily before saying, “Why don’t you girls come inside? I’ll order a pizza.” And I know everything’s going to be alright.
Alice links arms with me, smiling bigger than I’ve seen her smile in years as we head up toward the house.
Families are a funny thing, and if they’re done right, the passage of time means nothing. All the bad decisions and the arguments, the things left unsaid and the time spent apart dissipate.
By the time we go to bed, it’s like Alice hasn’t been missing for the last five years and by looking at her face, the stress is gone. She looks years younger, calmer, almost at peace with herself.