Chapter 20. Alice
ALICE
Everyone at the table was stunned, trying to figure out what had just happened. All Alice knew was that Cait had detonated a bomb, and once again it was her job to clean up the mess. She had no idea where Cait and Luke had gone, but she was furious.
She turned to check on her mother, but Nora dropped her eyes, her hands clasped in her lap like a timid schoolgirl. Mukesh sneezed into his napkin, and Father Kelly said, “Bless you.”
Alice exchanged glances with Maggie, but she knew her younger sister wasn’t going to be of any use. Since returning from the train station, she’d looked on the verge of tears herself.
Poppy stood, hands on her hips. “Where’d my mummy go?” Before anyone could answer, she set off to follow Cait, but Isabel scooped her up as she walked by and plopped her onto her lap, distracting her with questions about her charm bracelets.
Alice winked at the boys to assure them everything was fine, though they knew it wasn’t, even if Poppy was easy enough to distract and Augustus was busy driving a model train car through his mashed potatoes.
Finally, Nora looked up from her lap and spoke. “I’m sorry about that,” she said. She adjusted the collar on her blazer, and the gesture sank Alice’s heart. All the effort her mother had put into the day, and now this.
“I didn’t mean to upset her,” Nicole said.
Father Kelly refilled his wine and passed the bottle. “No, love,” he said. “She’s just a bit jet-lagged, our Cait.”
“That’s right,” Nora said, and dabbed the corners of her eyes with her napkin.
Alice scrambled to find something to fill the silence, but then Kyle turned to Father Kelly and said, “You were about to share the question that your father asked you every holiday.”
Alice offered Kyle a half smile to thank him.
“Yes, that’s right.” Father Kelly shifted in his seat.
“Well, I’d later learn from mother that father spent this extra time with us because when he was a child, holidays were often ruined by his parents’ feuding.
He didn’t have many happy memories, I’ll say.
And so the question he would ask us was simply ‘Are you happy?’”
Father Kelly sat back, and for a long moment, everyone at the table seemed to consider the question.
He meant the story to be heartwarming, of course, but Alice thought it was horrible.
How was a child supposed to answer a question like that other than to placate their parent?
Yes, yes, I’m happy. You’ve done your job.
Finally, Nora said, “Cheers,” and they all raised their glasses with weary gusto. No one was convinced.
“Shall we?” Alice said, gesturing to the food. “Before it gets cold?”
Relieved to have someone tell them what to do, they all gradually resumed eating, and soon the scraping of forks and knives on china plates replaced the awful silence. Still, the empty chairs stood out at the festive table, and no one spoke.
“Maybe we can go around and say what we’re most thankful for?” Alice said, desperate to shift the energy in the room. When no one volunteered, she asked Finn to go first.
Finn glanced up from his plate. He was still upset about not being able to go to Leo’s house after dinner, and for a split second, Alice worried he might try to humiliate or punish her. But then he gave a half shrug and said, “My friends,” his voice cracking.
When it was Augustus’s turn, instead of saying what he was most thankful for, he stood up and in his proper British accent asked, “But how come Americans wanted to leave England to become Indians?”
James nearly fell off his chair. “They were Pilgrims!”
Augustus frowned in disappointment. “Oh,” he said, and returned to his train.
After Kyle gave Augustus a brief history lesson on Thanksgiving—for once, Alice didn’t mind his Mr. Principal voice—they went around the rest of the room, and Alice did her best to laugh or nod thoughtfully, trying to help restore some sense of normalcy to the day.
As the servers— the servers! —refilled water and wineglasses, she wondered if they missed spending the day with their families or if they were grateful to be distracted by the drama of someone else’s.
She pushed her turkey, which was dry and tasted strangely like orange, to the side of her plate and picked at the bits—were they pomegranate seeds and crushed walnuts?
—in the brussels sprouts. Nothing felt as it should.
“May I be excused?” Finn asked, standing up.
All day Alice had wanted to tell him to stop with the surliness—have a conversation with one of the adults!
Help out your grandmother! Play with your cousins!
—but mostly she’d just let him be, because she knew that any request beyond sharing a meal with the family would only make him more surly. And yet, she still wanted him there.
“What about pie?” she asked him.
“I’m okay,” Finn said. “Can I just go to the attic to watch a movie?” He held his belly. “I think I’m getting the stomach bug, too.”
“Oh no,” Nora said.
Nicole leaned subtly away from the kids’ table.
“I didn’t have a stomach bug,” Alice assured the table, avoiding Kyle’s eyes. “Just some food poisoning.”
“Can I watch a movie, too?” James asked, hopping off his chair.
Finn put James in a gentle headlock. “I’m not feeling well, buddy, so I’m going to go up by myself, but I’ll hang out with you guys later. I promise.”
Finn was acting weird—not just pretending to be sick, but now being nice to his brother. Alice wasn’t sure what he was up to but figured as long as he was hanging out in the attic, at least she wouldn’t have to worry about his sulking.
“I’ll flatten some warm 7UP to take with you,” Nora said.
“I’ll get it myself,” Finn said, and before anyone could answer, he turned the corner to the kitchen.
As the caterers cleared the plates, Father Kelly launched into another story, this time about catching mice at his grandfather’s farm as a kid, and Alice grew more and more irritated with all of them.
Why was she always the one who had to stay behind to deal with the fallout?
The caterers served coffee and Earl Grey tea, and the conversation drifted to the raccoons.
It was all Alice had been hearing about from her father for weeks.
Cait should be the one sitting here listening.
And with that, her irritation turned to a sort of rage.
Not at her father and his fixation on the raccoons scarfing his garbage.
Or at her mother, who was clearly upset by Cait’s disappearing act and the drama of Maggie’s exit and reentrance, but who would never be able to admit her own role in the unraveling.
Or at her brother, forever gone. It was at herself, and it was not new.
It had been there for almost as long as she could remember.
Slowly, a truth emerged. Every important decision she’d ever made in her life had been in the service of taking care of her family.
She eyed the glass of red wine Cait had poured for her earlier, then picked it up and took a long sip. Before she finished swallowing, she caught Kyle watching her and quickly placed the glass back onto the table. Then, in a rush of defiance, she raised the glass again and took another sip.
“Alice,” Kyle said. A bark.
The table grew silent. Alice returned the glass again to the table.
The wine burned her throat and unsettled her stomach, and she regretted it immediately.
She set her fork on the left side of her plate in the four o’clock position, tines up, as her mother had drilled into her as a kid.
She suddenly felt desperate to get out of the room.
To be anywhere but there. She looked at Maggie and motioned to have her keep an eye on Nora, then stood and said, “I should check on Cait.”
Kyle stood. “I’ll come with you.”
“I don’t need help.” Alice pushed her chair in against the table and fixed the linen tablecloth, which had gotten ruffled when Cait stood to leave with Luke. “I’ll see how dessert’s coming along, too.”
Alice averted her eyes from Kyle and her mother and turned to leave.
When she got to the hallway, Kyle appeared behind her.
“I just told you I don’t need help,” she said. “Why don’t you ever listen?”
“Because you’re pregnant and were drinking wine,” Kyle said sharply.
Alice looked into his dark eyes, then turned away. “I forgot. For a second—I just forgot.” She gripped the wooden railing to the stairs. “I need to find Cait.”
Kyle scoffed.
“What?”
“Cait’s not looking to be found.”
This was true, but she headed up the stairs anyway.
Kyle caught up with her at the landing. “Did you know something was going on between her and Luke?”
“Of course I knew.” She did not mention she’d only just figured this out.
“Then why did you tell me it was a good idea to invite Mukesh?”
Alice turned. “I believe I told you the opposite.”
Her heels clicked along the wooden floor of the hallway, Kyle following close behind her.
She didn’t actually want to find Cait, but now she felt like she had to go through the motions to pretend that’s why she’d left the table, and she hoped the effort would at least help shed Kyle’s presence.
Downstairs, she could hear the kids getting their snow clothes back on.
“Can you please go sit with my parents or take the kids outside?” she asked Kyle.
“I will,” he said. “But at least tell me what that was all about. With the wine?”
Alice wrapped her arms around herself. “It was a mistake! This whole day has been a mistake, and I made one as well. Can you let it go?”
She wanted to scream when Kyle continued to follow her.
At Cait’s door, Kyle jiggled the glass doorknob. “Stop,” Alice said, but he opened the door anyway. The room was empty.
“It wasn’t a mistake,” Kyle said. “I know you.”
Alice stopped short of the attic, assuming Cait and Luke weren’t up there hanging out with Finn. “Then what was it?” she said. “Whatever you’re implying, just say it—”