What Alice Forgot

“She’s the supermum with three children, isn’t she?” Anne-Marie’s lip curled. “The one who doesn’t need to work because she’s got the rich husband.”

They all looked at me avidly, ready to be disgusted with Alice, because, to be honest, Dr. Hodges, I’ve complained about her before.

But I thought about laughing with Alice on the way home from the hospital and the horrified, hurt expression on her face when she talked to Nick on the phone. I thought about how she’d said, “Don’t you like me anymore?” and how when I’d left her today, her dress was all crumpled from her sleep and her hair was sticking up on one side. That was so typically old Alice, not to even look at herself in the mirror before she came downstairs. And I thought about how she’d cried at the hospital with me when Olivia was born, and how she’d said so innocently to us all today,

“Who is Gina?”

I felt sick with shame, Dr. Hodges. I wanted to say to them, “Hey, that’s my little sister you’re talking about.”

Instead I told them about how Alice had lost her memory and thought she was twenty-nine, and how it had made me think a lot about what my old self would say about this life I’m leading. I said I thought my younger self might think it was time to give up. Just to give up. Let it go. Walk away. No more injections. No more test tubes of warm blood. No more grief.

Of course they snapped to attention like good soldiers who know their duty.

“Never give up,” they told me, and one by one they recounted horrendous stories of infertility and miscarriage that had all ended with healthy bouncing babies.

I listened and nodded and smiled and watched the seagulls squabbling.

I don’t know, Dr. Hodges. I just don’t know.

Over lunch, Roger took it upon himself to bring Alice up to date with his own interpretation of every historical event that had taken place over the last ten years, while her mother decided to simultaneously do the same thing with the personal lives of everyone she’d ever met.

“And then the U.S. invaded Iraq, because old matey, Saddam, was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction,” intoned Roger.

“Except there were no weapons,” interrupted Frannie.

“Well, who really knows for sure?”

“You are joking, Roger.”

“And then Marianne Elton, oh, of course you remember her, she used to coach Elisabeth’s netball team,” said Barb. “Well, she married Jonathon Knox, that nice young plumber we had over that time when we had that problem with the toilets that very cold Easter, they had the wedding on some tropical island, so inconvenient for everyone, and the poor flower girl got badly sunburned, anyhow, two years ago they had a baby daughter called Madeline, which made Madeline very happy as you can imagine. I said, ‘Well, I never expected my girls to name their children Barbara,’ which I didn’t, but Madeline is such a popular name now, anyhow, poor Madeline turned out . . .”

“. . . and let me tell you, Alice, exactly what the government should have done straight after the Bali attacks . . . ”

“Oh, and one of Felicity’s boys was there in Bali!” said Barb, the personal world suddenly intersecting with the political. “He flew out the day before. Felicity thinks it means he’s been chosen to do something great, but so far he doesn’t seem to do anything much but visit Facebook, is that what it’s called, Roger—Facebook?”

Frannie said, “Does any of this mean anything to you at all, Alice?”

Alice had only been listening with one part of her mind. She was busy thinking about the concept of forgiveness. It was such a lovely, generous idea when it wasn’t linked to something awful that needed forgiving. Was she a forgiving person? She had no idea. She’d never been called upon to forgive something as big as infidelity. Anyway, did Nick want her forgiveness?

She said to Frannie, “I’m not exactly sure.”

Some things that Roger had been saying had maybe seemed familiar, as if they were things she’d learned once at school and then forgotten. When he talked about terrorist attacks, she felt a reflexive feeling of horror, and maybe even some fleeting memories: a woman in a sun visor with a hand pressed to her mouth saying, “Oh my word, oh my word.” But she couldn’t remember where she was when she first heard about them, if she’d been with Nick, or alone, if she’d watched them on TV or heard about them on the radio. She also seemed to recognize some parts of her mother’s stories. There was something familiar, for example, about the phrase “sunburned flower girl,” like the punch line of a joke she’d heard before.

Frannie was saying, “Well, she’s going to have to go back to the doctor. There’s something not right here. Look at her. It’s obvious.”

“I doubt they can just transplant her memories back in her head,” said Roger.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Roger, I didn’t realize you had experience as a neurosurgeon,” said Frannie.

“Who wants a nice piece of custard tart, then?” said Barb brightly.

Chapter 16

Alice was alone.

There had been a lot of intense debate about the wisdom of leaving her alone after lunch. Barb and Roger had their Saturday-afternoon advanced salsa-dancing class. They said they could easily miss it just this once, although, of course, it was an especially important class because they were rehearsing for the Family Talent Night at Frannie’s retirement village, but really and truly, it would be no problem to miss it if Alice needed them there. Frannie had an important meeting at the retirement village—something to do with Christmas. She was chairing the meeting but she could easily call and ask Bev or maybe Dora to do it, although they were both nervy public speakers, and it was likely they’d be railroaded by this rather domineering new resident, but that would hardly be the end of the world; her granddaughter came first.

“I’ll be fine,” Alice had repeated over and over. “I’m nearly forty years old!” she’d added flippantly, but there must have been something strange about the way she’d said it because they’d all stared at her for a moment, and then a whole new round of offers to stay began.

“Elisabeth will be back any minute,” she’d told them, shooing them out of the kitchen, down the hallway, and out the door. “Off you go! I’ll be fine!”

And within minutes, they were packed into Roger’s big shiny car, shadowy figures waving at her behind tinted windows, and the car was disappearing down the driveway, gravel flying.