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November 17th, 2002 NORTH PASADENA CALIFORNIA
'He wants custody.'
The words twist at her heart. So much so it physically pulls at her face and she winces in pain. Perhaps half of that pain is regret for thinking that the outcome could be different. You saw this coming, is all she can tell herself. She wasn't expecting it over the phone; before he'd even set a foot home in the house he no longer lived in. Spoken a word to the niece he rarely saw; now exposed to a reality so unfathomable.
The two of them sit in that silence for some time. Weighted down by the dreadful heaviness of these past several days. The rain comes softly down against the porch awning and bounces between the blades of lawn. The television pours softly from the living room window cracked ajar, her tiny silhouette curled up on the sofa. The residue of cold tea lines the bottom of the empty mugs in their hands. She's slept a meagre handful hours since that phone call.
'But he's moving there,' he says brashly.
'I know.'
'They'll never let him take her knowing—'
'I'm not the biological relative in this situation.'
'That doesn't mean shit.'
'It will to a court of law.'
'He's never home.'
'Because he's at work,' she says sharply. 'And if he moves there, it'll be for work. Work and home are the same out there. He'll have the luxury of being around her constantly. That's stability. That's all they'll care about.' She picks at the chip on the rim of her empty mug. 'They'll take one look at my lifestyle and it'll be done.'
'I'll speak if I have to.'
But they both knew it would never amount to that point. Her and her husband's livelihoods would be printed on separate papers like grocery store lists. Every schedule, every income. One would be pinned to the refrigerator. The other would be crossed out, balled up and tossed aside. She swallows gingerly.
'Maybe it's for the best,' she says.
'Now you and I both know that its not.'
'The psychologist said she's not going to remember this,' she says. 'The courts will hear about that too.'
He goes quiet at that. Not out of understanding, but puzzlement. To be so preemptive of something that hadn't even happened. How could anybody have any way of telling which memories would stay in one brain? And for what amount of time? But Alice knows, because the pretty woman in coke bottle glasses and a lemon yellow blouse told her in a mundane, knowing tone that held finality to fact.
"We see this often with children on the cusp of that pre-school age. Sometimes if a memory is so loaded with sensory indifferences... in this case, based on what you've shared... a secondary house, loud sirens, lots of strangers in this house, crying adult figures that we trust. To a child that's used to stability, that's a wonderland of indifference, and their brains start to treat it as such. Push it further back into the mind or buff it down so in later years, if it's ever recalled, they're not sure if it ever really happened. If it was a dream or reality. In many cases, that becomes so blurry, the memory fades all together... It's very common... She'll remember bits and pieces, but be prepared that it's almost a definite she will not remember that initial night or these following days for what they are. She's just too young... a part of her brain that isn't even localised to her perception just yet will step in and prevent these memories from cementing in place."
Alice repeats that aloud to him. His shoulders slump forward gently, muttering profanity under his breath. The rain starts to come down hard again. A distant laugh track ricochets off the window glass.
'When does he land?'
'Tomorrow morning.'
The funeral was set for Wednesday. The dress Alice was to wear already hung perfectly steamed against the back of her bedroom door. She couldn't bare to look at it and hear Jen's voice still embedded in the fabric like perfume from the day she'd bought it, for that networking function she never had the guts to attend, those countless months ago: "that cut is gorgeous on you!"
Had she known then. What she had really been purchasing it for. The thought rises in thin bile and simmers down into a wail that barely stifles from her throat, stumbling around the door.
She had been waiting at the end of the hall after Alice had closed it shut behind her, lavender fabric bundled in her tiny hands. She was still in her pyjamas.
'Is purple okay? Will Mom be wearing a dress too?'
She thought the funeral was somebody's birthday.
Alice touches her cheeks. Wet. Sopped as the grass just beyond the cracked pavement. She was experiencing that a lot this week. Fleeting moments of memory that made her cry before she even realised her skin was soaked. He puts a hand to her shoulder and squeezes it in reassurance.
'What do you think he'll propose?'
Alice doesn't know. She can think of many concoctions of the reality her loveless husband wished to see for this situation. They float around her mind in ghastly, stretching faces, screaming in tones that could splinter floorboards. But even surrounded—these personified possibilities inches from her face—all she could focus on was one terrible premonition. Something that hadn't even happened, but Alice knew of, because fate was already telling her so. The ghouls melt away. That haunted house folds out to a long stretch of beach, slathered in moonlight. The air is warm and converses with grains of sand in hush, skittering tones. There is not a soul in sight now. Everybody is prioritised on more pressing matters. She stands alone, before the lapping shoreline.
