13. Alice The Rhythm
Alice The Rhythm
Dinner was my favorite time of day at the mommune. The electric buzz of everyone around the table together, passing dishes, laughing and chatting. Every night, every time, it was a reminder of how it used to be in my family, while my parents were still here, before my siblings and I drifted apart. And tonight, it was a good distraction from the text messages that Elliott had been sending me all day—and my thoughts about whether I was going to text him back.
Merit whispered something in Brenna’s ear, and she laughed so hard I thought she was going to fall off her chair. Iris scooped cabbage stir-fry on top of the buckwheat noodles on Audrey’s plate. She scrunched her nose but then brightened as Iris said, “No, it’s so good! I promise you!”
“And it will make us grow big and strong too,” Jamie said. “Right, Grace?” she asked, looking up at the woman who had prepared all this goodness for us.
Multiple times a day, in moments just like this, my heart felt like it stretched to accommodate how much I loved these children. But I had always loved children, and not just the ones under my roof. For years I had been a first-grade assistant in our local elementary school. Being in a school environment comforted me, maybe because, even when my life was falling apart as a kid, school was consistent.
I relished that job, and the brightness and innocence of the children I taught, for almost twenty years. But after Walter died, I found that I wasn’t able to do it well anymore. I was having so much trouble sleeping that I would arrive tired and cranky, and the challenges that used to inspire me panicked me. Something simple—a child skinning a knee on the playground, a sick teacher needing me to take over the lessons for the day—would throw me into a spiral. I needed consistency; I needed rituals and routines. And, well, what people around town said about me was true: with three dead husbands, I could support myself.
It wasn’t until Julie and Grace moved in that I realized that a family provided me with the stability I so desperately needed. I loved getting the little girls dressed and ready for the day, knowing that, while Julie was at work, I would manage their schedules, that we would all sit around the table for dinner together. I went to bed very early each night because I had realized that around 10:30 p.m., my anxiety began to get the best of me. In the beginning, I felt guilty about not helping Julie with middle-of-the-night feedings, but I couldn’t handle the stressors and demands of the day without a good night’s sleep.
Of course, with that many kids in the house, things went wrong all the time. But in the context of “family,” they were things I could handle. Or maybe I was simply coming back to myself and was able to deal with small inconveniences better. It was a heartening thought. But did it mean I was ready for another relationship? I wasn’t sure.
“Right,” Grace said enthusiastically, responding to Brenna, then looked over at Merit and jumped up to fill his water glass.
“Mom,” Emma said, “can you get me some red pepper flakes?”
“Of course, honey,” Grace said.
Charlotte locked eyes with me and nearly imperceptibly shook her head. She’d asked me earlier why Grace acted like her children’s personal assistant.
“Grace,” I said, knowing I should stay out of it, “why don’t you let one of us help you. You’ve worked all day on this, and your food is getting cold.”
Grace bustled back to the table, hands full, and passed things out. She smiled tersely at me. “I’m just taking care of my children.”
I knew that smile. I knew I had crossed a line. So I looked at my plate and said, “You have outdone yourself. This looks divine.”
I said a blessing. Then Grace tapped her glass and said, “Everyone, I believe we need to let Charlotte begin our nighttime proceedings.”
Charlotte beamed from the head of the table. “Ladies and gentleman,” she started. Poor Merit. The only gentleman. He was either going to turn out to be the kindest, most empathetic man or a hen-pecked disaster. It was a grand social experiment. “You are looking at Montoya and Sons’ newest sales associate!”
“Mom!” Iris shrieked. The little girls loved her shrieking so much that they joined in.
Julie clapped and Emma whistled, and Grace said, “We’re having homemade ice cream for dessert to celebrate!”
When everyone quieted down, I asked, “So, what exactly does this new job entail?”
Charlotte paused for a moment, then laughed, saying, “Alice, I really don’t have any idea.”
We all laughed.
“A job is a job,” Merit said. “Congratulations, Charlotte.”
He really was mature and sweet. So far, things pointed toward very good man.
“So, what can we help you with, Charlotte?” Emma asked, as was our tradition.
“Well, Emma, I was thinking you looked like you needed an insurance policy.”
She giggled.
“Seriously,” Julie said. “We’re here for anything you need.”
Inside, I smirked. I took Julie’s kids to school and picked them up and watched them all afternoon. How was she going to help Charlotte with whatever she needed? Not that I minded. I looked over at Brenna, Jamie, and Audrey. They were the joy of my life. They were, if I was really being honest, a huge contributing factor to why I hadn’t moved forward with Elliott when we broke up a year ago. I couldn’t, wouldn’t leave them. And, beyond that, life at the mommune worked. I was good at it. I had failed miserably at marriage. But the thought of Elliott’s beautiful, work-worn fingers on my neck…
“Well,” Charlotte said tentatively, breaking me out of my thoughts, “I hate to ask. But, depending on what my new schedule is like, I might not be able to pick Iris up from school or practices.”
“We’ve got that covered,” I said. My afternoons were spent driving around to ballet, tennis, swimming, and gymnastics anyway.
“I can help too,” Merit said. “Iris’s tennis practice and my football practice are usually at the same time.”
“Well, we will take it day by day and work out something that makes sense for everyone.” I raised my wineglass. “For now, cheers to Charlotte!”
“Cheers to Charlotte!” everyone chimed in, the little girls raising their milk glasses, the teens and tweens raising their wineglasses of sparkling water.
The glasses clinked—and just like that, I was thrust back thirty-five years, to my ten-year-old self. I could see her, that little girl, in sepia tones, feel the way the house shook, how the shards of glass hit my skin, smell the gasoline, the fire, hear the shrieks of my brothers and sisters. But most of all, it was the shatter of glass that got me. The clatter, the clang. Maybe it was because it was the last thing I could remember that it always launched me back into that moment. The last thing before I woke up in a sterile hospital room all alone. I had been in the hospital once before when my eardrum burst, and my mom had never left my side. What she did with my four brothers and sisters I’ll never know. I’d never thought about it; I hadn’t had to. She kept us safe. Until she couldn’t keep us safe anymore.
“Alice, you go next!” Jamie shrieked.
I pinned on my most serene face. Jamie. My love. She, Brenna, and Audrey were the reason I could hear shrieks again without having to hide away; they were the reason that I could experience real laughter. You aren’t alone, I reminded myself. They’re all here. They aren’t going anywhere.
“The best part of my day today,” I said, “was coming home and seeing all of these kids running around together on the beach.”
I caught the smile that Emma and Iris shared, and it made my heart jump. Kids had such an easy connection, made such fast friendships. It was part of what made the mommune work.
“I am grateful,” I said, “for the sunsets and how much I love sharing them with all of you. And I need help with…” I paused and put my finger to my chin as if I was thinking really hard. “… deciding which toppings I’m going to put on my ice cream tonight!”
“Oh! Oh! Sprinkles!” Jamie said.
“Chocolate chips!” Audrey added.
“And chocolate syrup too!” Brenna added in a very mature voice. I had noticed that she had these moments now where she was trying to seem more grown-up than her sisters, I think to distinguish herself as more like Emma and Iris and less like Jamie and Audrey. It broke my heart a little, but it was also the most natural thing in the world.
I took a bite of my noodles and cabbage, savoring the salty, tangy goodness of the flavors combining in my mouth.
Grace started to get up, her plate already clean. “Oh, I’ll help you,” I said.
“No!” she said, a little snappily. “I would like to get my children’s dessert, please,” she added in a tone far colder than I was expecting. But I should be used to this by now, Grace’s obsession with feeding her children, with feeding us all. It was how she showed her love, and I understood that. But I hated how clearly we all watched her pay her penance.
But we all had our penance to pay. Grace paid hers in homemade ice cream. I paid mine in taking in those who needed me, in trying to save those I could to make up for not being able to save the ones I should have. It might not have been an even trade. But what was even anyway? What was fair? The thought began to overwhelm me, so I looked out the window, focused my eyes on the waves rolling to the shore, then retreating.
Find the rhythm, Alice, my mother used to say to me when I was scared, when I couldn’t sleep. Focus on the patterns.
The waves, my heartbeat, my breath in and out. There was a rhythm, a pattern, a reason. And I knew that, if I just kept looking for it, if I kept seeking it out, I could make it through another day.
Grace put a bowl down in front of me, a beautiful creamy white with diced peaches inside. I smiled up at her. She smiled down at me. I put my hand on her wrist for the briefest moment, to remind her that she was okay too. I felt it, her pulse, her beating heart. The rhythm helped. It always did. The ice cream didn’t hurt either.