A few weeks later, Stefan and Jep and I stood with the assembled Hodge clan, including Alice’s mother and her two daughters, her sisters and their families and my own parents, in front of the sign, hand-carved from Wisconsin red cedar, that read The Alice Hodge Safe Home. Rebecca was standing with us, a departure from the rules. Although she was technically the person who had done wrong and she was making amends to the Hodges, they were having none of it. They asked for her to be with them. They wanted the chance to publicly thank her for her sacrifice and ingenuity in deciding just what she—and by extension, Alice—would find meaningful for this big lakeside house that had already seen so much joy and grief. Not only did they gift The Alice Hodge Safe Home an operating budget that would be reviewed after six years, including a salary for Rebecca and money for home improvements as they were needed, they also independently gave a substantial sum directly to Stefan’s The Healing Project to be used at his discretion.
Just before the end of the ceremony, Alice’s mother, Alma, usually quiet in big groups, spoke up. “We accepted your letter, Rebecca, but I want you to know that none of us accepts its basic premise. You did not let our Alice down. No one did. Some people will fight and win. Some people fight and lose. Alice had a choice between the dark and the light of her nature. It seems cruel to say so, but she did have that choice. Your choice means that people will always be reminded of the best part of our Alice. You have brought a part of Alice back to us. And we thank you.”
Stefan, Jep and I stood there in the brave sunlight, moved by the free mingling of emotions that chased across those changed, familiar faces. I leaned heavily on Jep’s sheltering arm. As we walked back to the car, Stefan mused about how both things were true—Alma’s explanation and Becky’s account. Her inaction was an action; she was not guilty, but in a way she was responsible.
6
After his experience with Becky’s project, Stefan told me, “I feel lifted up by this. I think it’s helping.”
His conditional enthusiasm alarmed me, but I tried to paper over my misgivings. Life was not going to offer him a sustained emotional high. I wanted to talk to him about this, but I didn’t want to so pointedly burst such a fragile bubble.
One night, Stefan was getting ready to pick Will up; they were going out to a club to dance and Stefan was really looking forward to it.
“I used to love to dance, when I...well, before,” he said to me. “I almost said when I was young. Do you think I’ll remember how?”
“The way people your age dance, no,” I said.
“Geez, Mom, disco queen, do you have to be such a ger?” He’d called me this before, short for “geriatric.” In a withering parody of my own voice, he said, “Why, the way you young people go on, you never get a haircut, you never save a nickel...” He took a fork from the silverware drawer and sat down with me at the table, expertly plucking first the tomato peppers and then the Greek olives and salty cheese squares from my salad. Finally, I jabbed the back of his hand with my own fork. “Nice,” he said, and drifted to the refrigerator. “Oh! There’s another whole one in here!” He went silent and I belatedly realized he was making short work of the other salad.
“That’s for Dad!” I called.
“Well, where’s mine?”
“I didn’t make you one. I didn’t know you wanted one.”
“I worked all day!”
“So did I.”
“I mean, I really worked all day, lifting bags of potting soil, dragging hoses around...”
“So did I.”
“Yeah, dragging...verbs around.”
I told him, “You have no idea how heavy a verb can get. Go ahead and make yourself a salad.”
“It’s okay. This one’s practically gone... I’ll just stuff some more lettuce and olives in the bowl. He’ll never know the difference.”
“Well, you’re certainly saving some nickels.”
Stefan’s silence breathed affront. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. It’s Friday night. I’m looking forward to going out. You make some belittling remarks about my generation and then bitch about me eating fifty cents’ worth of iceberg lettuce. Now I’m in a great mood. You’re a real antidepressant, Theaitsa,” he said, using the Greek endearment for my name. When he was little, we called him “Stefanakis mou,” or my little Stefan. My mother still did.
I thought of that, and I felt bad, and asked him to sit with me for a moment.
“I know you feel great about the last project,” I told him. “But you know, you’re not going to get everything to wrap up so elegantly every time, right? Such a neat package? Not everybody is going to be as smart and decent as Rebecca or Tia Amelia. They’re not going to be people you know or feel comfortable with. These have been postcard moments but...”
“What’s your point?”
“Well, just that you can’t expect a big emotional payoff every time...”
“Why not?”
“Because life isn’t like that, Stefan. Life is sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes you take five steps forward, but sometimes you take two steps forward and three steps back.”
“Really?” he said. “I didn’t know that. No wonder all the great philosophers were Greek. Excuse me for feeling enthusiastic.”
“You should be. I just don’t want you to get so flattened if something goes wrong that you give up or...”
“Or what? Kill myself? Mom, how many times do I have to say I’m not going to kill myself? I could kill you, though,” he said.
I gasped. When I looked at him, I could see tears welling up in his eyes.
“I didn’t mean... I meant the way you say, I could just kill you...”
“Stefan, I know that. I didn’t think for a second that...” And I didn’t think for a second that he was actually threatening me. But I did think, for a second, of the way those words sounded, in his mouth.
I wanted to tell him that I got it, that I saw that he was trying to find a new way forward, to a sense of parity with other people, a way of being as normal as he could in the world. In a way, I think he was working his way up toward his own reckoning over Belinda.
I got up and tried to put my arms around him, but he stiffened.
“Let’s rewind this,” I said.
“We can’t.”
“We can. Let’s rewind this. Before you go, tell me about the next Healing Project.”
He snorted, contemptuous. “Well this next one, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t be part of it directly. You’ll see why. But it could turn out to be another one of those postcard moments.”
How far off the mark that description was would be evident only in hindsight.
By the time he got back with the latest letter that he and Merry had chosen, I’d made him his own salad with a few pieces of garlic bread. (“Thanks, Mom,” he said of refusing the bread. “That’s not exactly minty fresh for a nightclub. Why don’t I carry a mirror and a crucifix too?”)
The letter was from Roman Villera, Stefan’s only real friend in prison.
“You know Roman was a teacher, right?” he said and I nodded. “He taught sixth grade and it was a passion for him. He was always winning these best-teacher awards and stuff.”