Chapter 19 Alice
ALICE
I tiptoe down the hallway with a smile on my face for the first time in years. My nipples feel bruised but in the best possible way. Every time I move, the friction of my clothes against my skin pulls me back into the memories of last night.
Morris’s touch, the sounds he made.
He opened something inside me I didn’t realize I had.
Morris is a skilled lover, but it was more than him knowing what to do. He wanted to learn, to explore every inch of my most private places and discover their secrets. How much pressure on my tits made me wet. How hard to move, how fast. I’ve never been with anyone like him.
I only wish it could last.
But I’m no fool.
He is gorgeous, single, and a biker.
He’s not family material. And definitely not looking to tie himself down to someone like me, with tons of baggage.
The thought that, in a few days, I’ll be alone brings a chill up the back of my spine. I’ll have to find my way, and that’s okay.
I’ll do it.
I’ll provide for my daughter and pay back all my debts to Morris and Leo.
There is no other way it can be.
When I reach the living room, I can see that Lia is wide awake.
She’s sitting up in the nest of blankets on the floor, her back propped against the couch.
She’s got the two little dogs, one under each arm, and her cell phone in her hands.
The bigger dog lifts its head when it sees me, but a quick shushing sound from Lia, and it lays its head back down.
“Good morning,” I whisper, giving the girl a big smile. “How did you sleep?”
Zoey is passed out cold beside Lia, her face poking out from beneath the corner of a teal quilt.
Lia nods happily. She gives me a thumbs-up and sets the puppies down. She shushes the dogs again and then quietly climbs through the blanket fort to join me in the kitchen. The dogs trot after her, panting and clicking their nails on the tile floor.
Lia peeks out the kitchen door into the backyard, and then she unlocks the deadbolt and lets the dogs out to do their business.
“They’re okay out there by themselves?” I ask, keeping my voice low so I won’t wake Zoey. “They won’t run off?”
Lia shakes her head. “They’ve run off in the past. You know, if, like, a bunny or something really exciting caught their eye. But we lived for a year in my van, and all that time, I only had one leash. They learned to stay close to me if they wanted a warm bed and food.”
I look the girl over and risk asking the question on my mind. “Why were you living in your van? If you don’t mind my asking?” I sort through Leo’s kitchen for the coffee and filters.
Lia stares out over the yard, watching her pets. “I don’t mind at all.” She opens the door a crack and whistles, and all three dogs come running. She holds up a finger, and all three sit patiently, waiting to be let in. “Remind me later to clean up Leo’s yard,” she says.
I nod and laugh and brew the max amount of coffee Leo’s coffeemaker can produce. I head to the fridge and pull out some items to throw together a small breakfast.
There’s not much here, so shopping, if we end up staying, will be high on the list of things to do.
As much as I could live half the day on coffee, and the rest of the adults probably could too, Zoey will need to eat and keep a regular schedule as much as possible.
“So, the van story,” Lia says. “It was just one of those things, you know? After high school, Mom really wanted me to go to college. To pick a career, to get on the path.” Lia shrugs.
“I couldn’t imagine anything worse than another four years like the ones I’d spent in high school.
Hours locked behind a desk, doing things other people said were important.
So, I took off,” she says. “We were living in Tennessee at the time, so if you can imagine lots of farmland, wide-open spaces. I used the graduation money from my grandparents to buy a van, and me and all three of the pups set out for parts unknown.”
“You were eighteen?” I ask. I can’t imagine. “Did you have a plan?”
Lia shakes her head. “No plan what I would do, where I would go. I only knew I wanted to get away from all the stuff I didn’t want. School, a job. A nine-to-five, I guess I should say.”
“Coffee?” I ask, pouring myself a mug and setting out a second for her.
She nods. “Thanks.”
I put sugar and milk on the table before I sit across from her. “So, where did you go? Were you terrified? Excited?”
“Yes. All of it. All of the feelings.”
“I’m so practical,” I explain. “Maybe it’s from being a mom, but I can’t imagine how you slept, where you went to the bathroom…”
The pretty young woman across from me laughs and shakes her head. “You know the number one thing I learned in my time on the road? That it all just comes. Good comes, bad comes. I couldn’t stop any of it. Couldn’t prepare for it.”
I hear the sound of the shower turning off upstairs. Morris or Leo must be awake.
“So, that’s it,” she says. “Hard shit happened. Weather and flat tires. Running out of money or food. Finding myself in spots I didn’t think I’d be able to get out of.
But somehow, every single day, I woke up alive and ready to meet the adventure as it came.
I found places to eat and sleep. I met people along the way.
I took a ton of pictures and saw the country the way I wanted to. ”
“But you found your way here?” I ask.
I’m still not convinced that adventure sounds like fun.
“Yeah.” She nods thoughtfully. “I did.”
I feel like she has more to say, but she sips her coffee and doesn’t seem in any rush to get there.
“Alice, may I speak freely?”
The formality of the question surprises me. “Uh, sure,” I say.
She looks me over and reaches across the table.
“I thought I was choosing something that was just for me, you know? The freedom to wake up under the sunrise and sleep under the stars if I chose to. I listened to what I wanted on the radio. I sang at the top of my lungs. I ate at hole-in-the-wall places and let my dogs run free in random fields. It was a great time, but when I closed my eyes at night, I always felt like I was hiding from something. I was lying to myself, even while I was telling myself I was choosing the path less traveled. Running away from what I didn’t want for my life didn’t create the life I wanted.
For me, there was a big difference between taking a chance and making a choice. ”
I tilt my head, not entirely sure where she’s going with all this. “Which was leaving? The choice or the chance?”
“The choice,” she says without hesitation.
“Because while every day was a mystery and nothing was certain, I also had…nothing. I was free, and that felt different than I thought staying home and being confined to an office or a classroom would. But the real test was taking a chance on making the kind of life I wanted.”
Her face grows less animated, thoughtful as she talks about her mom.
“You know, my mom wanted me to work in sales. She said with my personality, my looks, I’d make a ton of money and do really well in sales if I didn’t want to go to college. And maybe she was right. I mean…” She shrugs.
“So, you came here?” I prod. I’m not sure there’s a lesson in this story, but I’m willing to wait for it.
“I did,” she confirms. “I’ve done it all.
Well, not everything. I never did go to work at the car rental place, and I’ve never worked in sales.
Not in the way my mom meant for me to. I’ve been a dog walker and groomer, a nanny.
I’ve house-sat for people, taken care of old folks.
Cut lawns.” She shrugs. “But I never lost the lessons I learned on the road.”
She meets my eyes. “It all just comes, Alice. We can’t prepare for it.
We can’t stop most of it. Sometimes we can run from it, but we can’t outrun it.
You always have a choice. How you want to live.
Who you want to be. Who you want to let in.
I think I decided I’d rather face it my way than spend my time looking at life in a rearview mirror. ”
I consider that. Consider the hippie wisdom of this young woman and wonder whether that’s what I’m doing. Facing my life or running from it.
“I always knew I had a dad out there,” she says. “And I have a little secret,” she admits. “I always knew his name. I always knew how to find him.”
“What?” I can’t believe she’s trusting me with this.
She nods. “Finding my dad was what I was really running from. I realized that after a while. I used to be mad at him because he never knew me, never tried. But I realized my mom probably knew, deep down, that a twenty-year-old biker she’d met in a bar probably wouldn’t have been a good dad, and she never told him.
And Tiny’s cool and all, but Mom knew he wasn’t her soul mate.
But he was my dad. And in my mind, I understood that until I found him and knew him, until I knew about that missing half of who I am, I would never really know what I wanted from life.
I would have just driven aimlessly, always wishing I’d pointed my van in the direction of my dad. Until, finally, I did it.”
Things are starting to make sense to me.
“Everything comes,” she says. “But our truth won’t find us until we’re ready to face it.”
“You’re very wise for your age, Lia.”
“Thank you.” She smiles, pushing the coffee mug to the side.
“I’m going to see if I can get a turn in that shower.
Then I’m going to make breakfast smoothies.
” She blows noisy kisses to her dogs and rinses her mug in the sink.
Then she trots over to me and gives me a sweet smile.
“I’m glad I landed with you guys. Zoey’s like the little sister I always wanted and never had. ”
She plods through the living room and checks on Zoey as she passes. She turns back and holds her hands in a prayer pose on the side of her face.
I smile my thanks and refill my coffee.
She’s a sweet girl. Kind, independent. I’m glad she’s landed with us as well.
I think about what she said. What would I do if I had the freedom to choose anything?
I think about my life coming for me, happening whether I plan for it, whether I build it, or whether I stand on the horizon and watch, waiting for it to reach me.
Does that life include Morris?
Is he what’s meant for me?
Or is he just a distraction in the rearview while I’m running from Jerry?
I don’t know what I believe anymore.
I’ve got the wisdom of a biker, a hippie girl, and the demands of a husband steering me every which way. I think that’s the problem.
I’m surrounded by people who know what they want. Who know who they are and their place in their world. I’m still finding my way. Battered between a life I didn’t make but chose with Jerry on the one hand, and the vast, terrifying unknown of making something from literally nothing on the other.
In truth, I’ve got a beater car that’s dead on blocks.
I have a daughter who won’t be able to drink herbal smoothies with the dogs for breakfast. I need to find a job, a home, and that nine-to-five life if I don’t want everything to fall apart.
I appreciate what Lia said, and I’m glad she’s found her father.
But I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more lost, torn between choices and chances.