Don't Look for Me(20)

We talk then, Hannah and Suzannah. We talk about childish things. We talk about our pets. Suzannah has a little puppy named Oscar and Hannah has a cat named Whiskers. At every turn, I am redirected with my answers. This is a game Alice plays the same way each time, and I imagine before today, she played both parts. Hannah and Suzannah.

When she tires of the game, I begin again with my inquiries.

“Who else gets to play Suzannah?” I ask. “Your father?”

She turns away in a huff.

I’ve hit a nerve so I push harder. “Your mother?”

“Stop asking dumb questions!” she says.

She walks to the wall of shelves and pulls out a board game. Candyland. It’s old, the box broken and taped back together.

She doesn’t say a word as she sets it up on the floor.

We draw cards. We take turns. I wait. And then I resume.

“Well,” I say. “I sure am glad you found me last night. I haven’t gotten to play Candyland in years. Not since my children were younger.”

She ignores me and moves her player five squares. I draw. I move. I pass her and it makes her angry.

“No fair!” she yells. “You’re cheating!”

“Don’t worry,” I say. “You’ll catch me on the next turn. Just draw a card—you’ll see! And either way, win or lose, we’re having fun, right?” I am doing it again. Parenting.

She is not your child.

She draws another card. She passes me and smiles.

I smile back. I spot an old-looking doll on the shelf. She has a porcelain face with chipped paint around one cheek. The rest of her is soft so she is propped up between books.

“Who is that?” I ask. “On the shelf.”

I point to the doll. Alice looks up at her. The smile on her face changes to something mischievous.

“That’s Dolly,” she says.

“Is she yours?” I ask. “She looks very old. Did she belong to your mother?”

This causes her mood to shift darker. The smile leaves and she changes the subject to me.

“How many children do you have?” she asks.

“Three.” The answer will always be three.

“How old are they?” she asks.

“Twenty-one and sixteen.”

She looks at me now and I can see that she is smart. Or perhaps clever.

“You said you had three children,” she says.

I consider my answer carefully. I do not want to disclose anything to this girl, but I don’t want to lie and get caught in it. I need her to trust me.

I take a leap.

“One of my children died. When she was a little girl.”

Alice stares at me. “How did she die?” she asks.

“She was hit by a car. She ran into the street.”

I say the words but don’t allow myself to hear them. I have to move out of this conversation quickly before she breaks me.

But then she is in my lap, climbing right over the Candyland board, arms squeezing me tight. She begins to cry.

“That is so sad,” she says. But her tears, her arms around me, they do not seem real. They do not pull me in. I do not feel like crying, not even with this memory being dragged out before me. My dead child. Lying dead in the street.

Instead, I am stiff as a board. I cannot even close my arms around this child, this new child, who clings to my body.

“I’m okay,” I lie. “It’s really okay. It was a long time ago.”

Alice heaves in and out. The tears stop and she turns her body so her back is nestled against my chest. She takes my forearm and pulls it across her. She strokes my skin like she’s petting me.

“I’m nine too,” she says. “That’s why we picked you up.”

What? I think I must have heard her wrong. So I ask—

“What do you mean?”

She turns her head to gaze up at me. Wide eyes. Angelic. Haunting.

“We were waiting for you. We had to wait a long time.”

I let the words sink in. Each one is a bolt of lightning. Each one shocks me into disbelief.

“Waiting for me?” I ask now. “How did you know I would be there?”

My heart is wild in my chest and I pray that she can’t feel it as she pets my skin. I need to find out what she’s saying.

“We knew lots of things. We knew you were coming. And we knew about your daughter. I didn’t think you’d tell me but you did. You’re a very honest person.”

She leans her head into my chest. The hairs stand up on every inch of my skin as she continues to stroke my arms. To pet me like an animal.

“Oh!” I say. My voice trembles. “And here I thought you just happened to run into me.”

She giggles. “I know. That was just a little secret we kept. We waited for you, silly. We saw you running to the gas station and then stop and look around like you were confused and sad. And then you started to walk to town. Then I said ‘is that her?’ and he said ‘yes’ and I asked if we still had to run the truck into you, and he said ‘no’ and then we followed behind you with the lights off for a while, then we pulled up close and then we got you!”

I am standing. She is lying on the floor, stunned. I don’t know what happened in this instant, except that I could not stand to have her in my arms after those words left her mouth.