What Alice Forgot

The doctor I spoke to seems confident that she’ll have her memory back by the morning. She was one of the nicer doctors I’ve met in my years of doctors. She actually looked me in the eyes and waited till I’d finished speaking before she spoke. But I could tell she was just focused on the fact that Alice’s CT scan didn’t show any sign of what she called “intracranial bleeding.” She blinked a bit when I said Alice doesn’t remember the existence of her own children, but she said people can have a wide variety of responses to concussion and that rest was the best thing. She said as her injury heals, her memory will come back. She seemed to be implying that they’d already gone above and beyond what they’d do in a normal concussion case by keeping her overnight for observation.

I felt strangely guilty leaving Alice there at the hospital. She seems so much younger. That’s the thing about this I couldn’t seem to get across to the doctor. It’s not just Alice being confused. It’s like I am literally talking to 29-year-old Alice. Even the way she talks is different. It’s slower and softer and less careful. She’s just saying whatever comes into her head.

“Did I have a thirtieth birthday party?” she asked me before we left and I couldn’t for the life of me remember. But then on the way home in the car I remembered they had a BBQ. Alice had a big pregnant belly and they were right in the middle of renovations. There were ladders and paint tins and gaping holes in walls. I remember standing in the kitchen helping Alice and Nick put candles in the cake, when Alice said, “I think the baby has the hiccups.” Nick pressed his hand to her stomach and then he grabbed my hand and held it over her stomach so I could feel the freaky fishy movements too. I have such a clear memory of both their faces turned to me, their eyes shiny, flushed with the excitement and wonder of it all. They both had flecks of blue paint in their eyebrows from painting the nursery. They were lovely. They were my favorite couple.

I used to secretly watch Nick listening to Alice when she told a story; that tender, proud look he got on his face, the way he laughed harder than anyone else when she said something funny or typically Alice. He got Alice, the way we did, or maybe even more so than us. He made her more confident, funnier, smarter. He brought out all the things that were there already and let her be fully herself, so she seemed to shine with this inner light. He loved her so much, he made her seem even more lovable.

(Does Ben love me like that? Yes. No. I don’t know. Maybe in the beginning. All that shiny love stuff doesn’t seem relevant anymore. That’s for other younger, thinner, happier people, and besides which, it’s not actually possible for a dried apricot to shine.)

I miss the old Nick and Alice. When I think of them standing in that kitchen, putting candles on the cake, it’s like remembering people who I once knew, who moved to another country and didn’t keep in touch.

At 4:30 a.m. Alice woke with a start and the thought clear in her head: I never asked Elisabeth how many children she has.

How could she not know the answer to that question? But more important, how could she have forgotten to ask it when she didn’t know? She was a selfish, self-obsessed, shallow person. No wonder Nick wanted to divorce her. No wonder Elisabeth didn’t look at her in the same way anymore.

She would ring Mum in the morning and check with her and then she would pretend that of course she hadn’t forgotten the existence of Elisabeth’s children (just her own) and say, “Oh, by the way, how is little thingummybob?”

Except she couldn’t be sure Mum still had the same phone number anymore. She didn’t even know where Mum lived. Had she moved into Roger’s cream-and-chrome apartment with its harbor views? Or had Roger moved into Mum’s house with the doilies and knickknacks and potted plants? Either possibility seemed ludicrous.

The girl in the cubicle next to her was snoring. It was a thin, whiny sound like a mosquito. Alice turned over on her front and pushed her face hard into the pillow, as if she were trying to suffocate herself.

She thought, This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me.

But actually, she couldn’t even be sure of that.

Elisabeth’s Homework for Dr. Hodges After we left the hospital this afternoon, Mum and I went over to Alice’s place to meet Ben and the kids. We all had pizza for dinner. (Thankfully Roger had a Rotary meeting; I was not in the mood for Roger. I can’t think of anyone ever being in the mood for Roger, except for Mum, presumably, and Roger, of course.) We didn’t tell the children that Alice had lost her memory. We just said she’d hit her head at the gym but she was going to be fine. Olivia clasped her hands together and said, “Darling Mummy! This is an absolute tragedy!” and I could see Ben’s back shaking with suppressed laughter as he stood at the cutlery drawer. Madison curled her lip and said contemptuously, “So, does Dad know about this?” and then stomped up to her bedroom as if she already knew what the answer would be. Tom waited till Olivia was busy at the kitchen table with crayons and glitter making a huge getwell card for Alice before silently taking me by the hand and leading me into the living room. He sat me down and looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Okay, tell me the truth. Has Mum really got a brain tumor?” Before I could answer, he said, “Don’t lie! I’m a human lie detector! If your eyes look up to the right, that means you’re lying.” I had to make a superhuman effort not to look up to the right.

It was sort of a fun night. I don’t know why. A fun night at poor Alice’s expense.

Oh, a yawn! A precious, proper yawn! I’ve got to go now, Dr. Hodges. It might be sleep.

As the sky began to lighten outside the hospital Alice fell into her deepest sleep of this long, strange, fragmented night. She dreamed of Nick sitting at a long pine table she’d never seen. He shook his head, picked up a coffee mug, and said, “It’s always about Gina, isn’t it? Gina, Gina, Gina.” He drank from the coffee mug and Alice felt pure dislike; she turned away from him to wipe vigorously at a dried grease spot on a granite countertop.

In her sleep, Alice twitched so violently the bed moved.

She dreamed she was standing up in a small, darkened room, and Elisabeth was lying next to her, looking up at her with a frightened face, saying, “What does she mean there is no heartbeat?”

She dreamed of a giant rolling pin. She had to push it up a hill while thousands of people watched. It was important that she make it look easy.