What Alice Forgot

Two were brothers. The youngest was a severe asthmatic and was constantly in and out of hospital. One was in speech therapy for a stammer. Francesca was into swimming, which required early-morning training sessions. Elisabeth was involved with the Vietnamese expatriate community, a support group for adoptive parents, and of course she was treasurer of her school’s Parents and Friends Committee. She’d also got back into rowing and was as thin as a rake.

She and Ben also had two dogs, a cat, three guinea pigs, and a fish tank. That quiet, neat little house Alice had visited all those years ago when Elisabeth was refusing to get out of the bed was now an absolute madhouse. Alice got a headache after five minutes.

Luckily they were all coming here today for a Mother’s Day lunch, rather than Elisabeth’s crazy house, and Madison, the precious girl, was going to cook.

Sleep, Alice. In a few hours the house will be filled with people.

Mum and Roger would be early. They’d be desperate to show them their photos from their recent holiday to the Latin Dance Convention in Las Vegas. Salsa dancing was still their passion.

As Frannie once said, “They’ve created a whole life around salsa dancing.” Xavier had added, “Not like us. We’ve created a whole life around sex.” Frannie hadn’t spoken to him for a week, she had been so humiliated to hear him speak like that in front of the grandchildren.

Frannie and Xavier would be there today, together with Jess, one of Xavier’s granddaughters, who had moved to Sydney a few years ago and made contact with her grandfather, to his everlasting joy. She was an extremely hip young Web designer who was also the lead singer in a band. Frannie and Xavier enjoyed going along to Jess’s “gigs” and making knowledgeable comments afterward about the “crowd” and the “acoustics.”

Alice worried sometimes that Frannie was overtiring herself, keeping up with all of Xavier’s activities, but there was no denying her happiness.

She shifted in her bed. Sleep. As Frannie would certainly point out, she was quite old enough to take care of herself!

Hurry up and sleep.

She slept, and dreamed of Gina again.

She, Mike, Nick, and Alice were sitting around the dinner table after a long night of eating and drinking.

“I wonder what we’ll all be doing in ten years’ time,” said Gina.

“We’ll be grayer and fatter and wrinklier,” said Nick, who was a bit drunk. “But hopefully the four of us will still be friends sitting around a table like this, talking about our memories.”

“Awwww,” said Gina, raising her glass. “You’re so sweet, Nick.”

“Preferably on a yacht,” said Mike.

Was it a dream or a memory?

“Alice,” said a voice in her ear.

Alice opened her eyes.

Nick’s face was creased with sleep. “Were you dreaming about Gina?” “Did I say her name?”

“Yes. And Mike’s name.”

Thankfully she hadn’t said Dominick’s name. He was still a bit strange about Dominick. Did Nick sometimes dream of that Megan? She looked at him suspiciously.

“What?” he said.

“Nothing.”

“Happy Mother’s Day.”

“Thank you.”

He said, “I’ll go bring us up some coffee in a minute.”

“Okay.”

Nick closed his eyes and fell immediately back asleep.

Alice put her hands behind her head and considered her dream. Dominick had made an appearance because she’d seen him at the IGA yesterday. He was studying a packet of floss as if his life depended upon it. She had a feeling he’d seen her first and wasn’t in the mood for one of their overly hearty, let’s-pretend-this-isn’t-awkward chats and so she’d obligingly darted into the next aisle.

It was so strange to think that she’d seriously considered spending her life with him. (He was married now to one of the other mothers from school; he probably thought the same thing about her.)

Madison had been asking Alice a lot of questions lately about the year they separated.

“If you hadn’t lost your memory that time, do you think you and Dad would have still got back together?” she’d asked just yesterday.

It made Alice sick with guilt when she thought about what they had put the children through that year. She and Nick had been so young, so full of the earth-shattering importance of their own feelings.

“Do you think we damaged you?” she asked Madison anxiously.

“No need to get hysterical, Mum,” Madison had sighed, worldly-wise.

Would they have got back together if she hadn’t lost her memory?

Yes. No. Probably not.

She remembered that hot summer’s afternoon a few months after Francesca was born. Nick had stopped by the house to return a schoolbag Tom had left in his car. The children were out back, in the pool, and Alice, Dominick, and Nick were on the front lawn, reminiscing about their own childhood summers playing with water sprinklers on front lawns, before the days of water restrictions. Alice and Dominick were standing together, and Nick was standing a little way apart.

The conversation had led to Alice and Nick telling Dominick about how they’d painted the front veranda on a sweltering hot day. It had been a disaster. The paint had dried too quickly; it had all cracked and peeled.

“You were in such a bad mood that day,” Nick said to Alice. “Stomping around. Blaming me.” He imitated her stomping.

Alice gave him a shove. “You were in a bad mood, too.”

“I poured a bucket of water over you to calm you down.”

“And then I threw the tin of paint at you and you went crazy. You were running after me. You looked like Frankenstein.”

They laughed at the memory. They couldn’t stop laughing. Each time their eyes met they laughed harder.

Dominick smiled uneasily. “Guess you had to be there.”

That just made them laugh harder.

When they finally stopped and wiped the tears from their eyes, the shadows on the lawn had lengthened and Alice saw that she was standing next to Nick and Dominick was standing apart, as if she and Nick were the couple and Dominick was the visitor. She looked at Dominick and his eyes were flat and sad. They all knew. Maybe they’d all known for the last few months.

Three weeks later, Nick moved back in.

The funny thing was that Nick didn’t even remember that moment on the lawn. He thought she imagined it. For him, the significant moment had been at Madison’s oratory competition.