Chapter 4
Sleep is never easy to come by when you're worried. Your mind is filled with about a thousand different “what-if” scenarios and each one throws pure alcohol on the fires of anxiety. My thoughts raced with hypotheses about what could be going on with Alice, how to fix it, how to care for Marcus, and practically any other facet of the problem that I could come up with. I glanced at the clock on my nightstand. The hands showed it was a little before 3 in the morning. Looking at the hands, I noticed their shaped looked reminiscent of someone throwing up their hands to cheer me on. I was grateful for the encouragement, but slightly less grateful that it chose to arrive at such an unwholesome hour in the morning. Still, there wasn't much point in trying to go back to sleep now, so I got out of bed as carefully and quietly as I could so as not to disturb Alice and went down the hall to the kitchen. There's really only one thing to do when anxious thoughts wake you up at times when decent folk should be sleeping: have a cup of coffee. There are some people who would sternly tell you that coffee will only help make the anxiety worse like adding accelerant to an already towering inferno. Some people are also wrong. I choose to file such advise appropriately and then shut the drawer on that mental filing cabinet. The ritual of making coffee gave me something to focus on, and as the rich aroma of the coffee percolating hit my nostrils I felt a wave of calm come over me like a heavy blanket and for just a fleeting moment my mental landscape leveled out. I felt a pair of arms reach around my waist and draw me in for a hug from behind. “Did you make enough for me?” I leaned my head back and pulled Alice's cheek against mine, returning the embrace. Being the considerate husband I am, I told a white lie, “It's just about done.” Alice saw straight through my attempt to appease her and smiled. “You're a terrible liar”, she whispered as she pulled away and walked toward the couch. “But then, that's one of the things I love about you.” Smiling right back at her I poured her coffee and started a second cup brewing, then walked Alice's cup to her. She took it from me graciously and I couldn't help but notice the simple elegance with which she did it. I just watched as she blew on the surface of the coffee, then took a slow sip. It was a simple act, but as her “condition” worsened I had come to cherish the simple things about her more and more. Now, as the only other person we had found that knew of her presence my anxieties began to stir again as I feared losing something precious to me. My mind was snapped back from its worried spiral by the sound of the coffee maker gargling out the last of the water signaling that my own cup had finished. Still filled with worry I retrieved my cup and returned to sit down next to Alice on the couch. There was a long period of silence in the dimly lit living room; the only thing interrupting the quiet was the two of us sipping on our hot drinks. We carried on like that for an eternity, or maybe it was just my mind wishing that it was an eternity. An eternity with her right there by my side. But the coffee couldn't last forever and eventually the cups were emptied. An idle part of my brain thought that this was essentially sacrilege and should be corrected immediately. I contemplated following through on that impulse when Alice broke the stalemate. “Charles, what do we do if we can't fix this?” She gave voice to the very fears that had been lurking just below the surface, bringing them into the light and forcing me to look at them. Slowly, carefully, I thought through my answer. We both knew that being unable to fix this would only have one eventual outcome: I would forget all about her. Unable to see her, hear her, remember that she had ever existed. In short, for me, life would go on and I would be none the wiser about the life that I had left behind. Sure, I would have Marcus, but I knew from what I had seen with everyone else that my mind would just gloss over the absence of his mother, or that it would craft a new past that would explain why it was just him and me. But Alice? She would remember. She would remember everything. Presumably she would be forced to watch as the family she had helped put together lived life without her, forgetting that she had ever been there. The thought of that sent an icy chill straight to my heart. I set my coffee down and scooted closer to put my hands on her shoulders. “Alice, we are not going to let that happen. You mean too much to me to let that happen.” She was still visibly shaken, but she managed to crack a small smile. But it was one that didn't quite make it to her eyes. She heard my words and understood what I was trying to say, but right now her fear was bigger than them. And that was okay. No one, no matter how strong they look on the outside, no one is a superhero all the time. Sometimes you have to let yourself experience what you're feeling before you can move beyond it. I would be there for her, right beside her while she experienced it, all the while reassuring her that there was more than fear. I gently squeezed her shoulders, hoping that it would convey what I was thinking. “Come on, honey, I'll clean things up in the morning. Let's turn in.”