“It’s cold in my house. Tea keeps you warm.”
“We’ll have some tea in a bit.” Cora guided Alice to the stairs. “I remember the first time I saw inside this house. I was sixteen, and your daddy was courting me. I’d never seen stairs so grand. The way they go up, then split off in both directions. It was your great-grandfather built them. The story is he wanted to build the finest house in Montana to convince your great-grandmother to marry him and live in it.”
“Sir built me a house. The man provides.”
Cora let it go, led Alice down a wide hall, and into a room with pink walls and white curtains.
“I know it’s not exactly the same,” she began. “I’m sorry I didn’t keep all your posters and…”
She trailed off as Alice stepped away from her, her face astonished as she wandered the room, touched the dresser, the bed, the lamps, the cushions on the window seat.
“It faces west for the sunset,” Alice murmured. “I sit outside once a week if I’ve been good. One hour, once a week, and watch the sunset.”
“Did you have a window in your house?” the sister asked.
“It’s a little window, high up at the ceiling. I can’t see the sunset, but I can see the sky. It’s blue and it’s gray and it’s white when the snow falls. Not like the room with no windows.”
“You can watch the sunset every night,” the mother said. “From inside the house or from outside.”
“Every night,” Alice repeated.
Overwhelmed at the idea, she turned. Then jumped in shock when she faced a mirror. The woman wore a long skirt and a white blouse, and pink shoes. Her hair, gray like an angry sky, was braided back from a pale face with scoring lines.
“Who is that? Who is that? I don’t know her.”
“You will.” The mother put arms around Alice, around the woman. “Do you want to rest now? I bet Reenie would bring you those cookies and some tea.”
Alice stumbled to the bed, dropped down to sit. The bed felt so thick, so soft, she began to cry again. “It’s soft. It’s mine? It’s pretty. I can keep the coat?”
“Yes. See? You can cry when you’re happy, too.” The mother sat beside her, then the grandmother on the other side.
The sister sat on the floor.
In that moment, for that moment at least, Alice felt safe.
*
Though her feelings about bringing Alice home remained mixed and murky, Bodine put on a cheerful face as she walked into the kitchen.
She found her mother and Miss Fancy at the counter, peeling potatoes. “I expected to see Clementine.”
“I sent her home. We decided to keep new—or half-remembered—faces to a minimum this first day. And the nurse is already up there with Alice and your nana.”
“How’d it go?”
“Better, I think, than anyone expected.” Miss Fancy set a peeled potato aside, picked up another. “She had some bad moments, and she’ll have more, but by God, she had some good ones, too. We were right to bring her, Reenie.”
“We were, and Ma seems easier already. I think she’ll get her first good night’s sleep tonight. Clementine got a chicken in the roaster before she left. We’re having it with mashed potatoes, gravy, your grammy’s candied carrots, and buttered broccoli. It’s a meal Alice favored once, so…”
“I’ll give you a hand.”
“No.” Setting down the peeler, Maureen wiped her hands on a dishcloth. “I want you to come up and meet her.”
“But—”
“We decided we’ll hold off on the boys, or having Sam go up. Keep it to women today. We’re going to take a tray up to her room for dinner, ease her in there, too. But she should meet you.”
“Okay.”
“You two go on. I’ll get these potatoes peeled and on the boil.”
They went up the back stairs. “We all talked about keeping things calm and as natural as possible.”
“I know, Mom.”
“I know this is hard on you, Bodine.”
“It’s not.”
“It is. On you, on all of us. So I’m telling you like I’m going to tell everyone else: When you need a break from it, you take one.”
“What about you?”
“Your father’s already made it clear I’ll be taking one from time to time.” She lowered her voice as they reached the second floor. “The nurses are going to use the sitting room off Alice’s bedroom when they’re not in with her, and the bathroom across the hall we’ve designated for them and for Alice. Celia’s coming about eleven tomorrow. Our house is going to be full of people for some time to come.”
“Mom.” Bodine drew her mother to a halt. “Weren’t we all there, all of us, when Grandpa got sick? Didn’t we bring him back here from Bodine House, and sit with him, read to him, do everything we could—even with the nurses—so he could die at home, at the home he’d chosen?
“Alice isn’t dying,” Bodine continued, “but it’s the same. We’re just going to do everything we can to help her start living again.”
“I love you so much, my baby.”
“I love you right back. Now introduce me to your sister.”
They crocheted together, mother and daughter, in the two chairs Maureen had chosen hoping for just that.
Though Bodine had been prepared for Alice’s appearance, if she didn’t know the woman was a couple years her mother’s junior, she’d have sworn Alice was ten years older.
“Alice.”
Alice’s head shot up at Maureen’s voice; her eyes glimmered with distress as she saw Bodine.
“Is she a doctor? Is she a nurse? Is she police?”
“No, this is my daughter. This is your niece, Bodine.”
“Bodine. Alice Bodine. The mother says Alice Ann Bodine.”
“I named her Bodine to honor that part of us.”
“She has green eyes. You have green eyes.”
“Like my mother’s, and yours.” Trying for casual, Bodine stepped closer. “I like your shoes.”
“They’re pink. They don’t hurt my feet. I ruined my slippers and the socks, too. That was bad and wasteful.”
“Sometimes things just wear out. Is that a scarf you’re making?”
“It’s green.” Almost lovingly, Alice smoothed the length of the wool. “I like green.”
“Me, too. I never could get the hang of crocheting.”
Lips pressed tight, Alice applied herself to it.
“The sister has a daughter,” she muttered to herself. “I had daughters. The sister gets to keep the daughter. I don’t keep the daughters. A man needs sons.”
Bodine opened her mouth, saw her grandmother shake her head.
“This is a pretty room. It’s cheerful, this pink. Do you like it?”
“It’s not cold. I don’t need a shawl. The bed is soft. It faces west for the sunset.”
“That’s my favorite part of it. It’s a beautiful sunset tonight.”
Confused, Alice looked over.
Her crocheting fell out of her hands into her lap. A long, long gasp escaped as her face transformed. Cora plucked up the hook and yarn as Alice pushed to her feet.