Accompanying Alice Read Online Free PDF Page B

seventeen when you were born and I am as real as it comes. You don’t always know how I’m going to react. Sometimes you’ve got to ask the questions before you give the answers. I’m concerned about Becky, period. Has she been to a doctor, is she really pregnant, is she taking vitamins, does she have morning sickness, does she…does she need anything, is she all right, is Mike…” She tucked her tongue behind her bottom lip to still its sudden trembling. “Is Mike good to her…? ”
    “Ma—”
    “I just don’t want you girls to make my mistakes.” Oh, good, now she was criticizing them for not having hindsight. Her mother had certainly trained her well. “Look, I know that’s an awful thing to say. It’s a burden, and I hated it when your grandmother said things like this to me, but—”
    “Save the lecture, Ma. I’m up on the consequences of carelessness. I haven’t needed ‘em yet, but those were my condoms I was trying to get Becky to use.”
    “Allyn—”
    “No. No. Let me go. Get your own life, Ma, and leave me mine.”
    “Allyn. All—” The phone clicked hard in Alice’s ear. She hung up slowly, furious with herself for digging her heels into an argument with a daughter who was so far from home. Who did she think she was, anyway? Mother, rival, confidant e , counselor—all and none in more or less equal amounts. They were too young to bear the crushing weight of daily life on their own, but she couldn’t—shouldn’t—protect them from it anymore. Alice punched the wall lightly with her fist. How was she supposed to let them go without dying a little inside, without wanting to smother and protect them from themselves and from each bent heart, broken trust, betrayed dream? She settled her fists on the dining room table and made a sound somewhere between a sob and a whimper, hoping semi-silent agony was what courage really was.
    Without thinking, Gabriel touched her shoulder. “Can I help?”
    “No.” Alice shook her head. “All they want me to do is get my own life and let them start theirs and I’m not ready to. I don’t know how.” She moved around the table settling already settled chairs in place. “Even if you were a single parent with twin daughters exactly like mine, the only thing you could do is commiserate with me for a while. I’d still have to deal with the worry on my own.” She glanced at him suddenly. “You’re not, are you? A parent with teenagers? I don’t know why I assumed—”
    “It’s all right. Most people assume. And no, I don’t have any kids. Never been married.” He gave her a story-of-my-life shrug. “An undercover cop can be tough to live with—one track mind, makes up his own rules as he goes, gone for months at a time, character compatible with the scum of the earth...”
    “Is that what you really think?” Alice swung on him abruptly, eyes flashing. “Is that what you want people to think? Because they will if you let them.”
    Surprised by both the passion and the challenge, Gabriel stood mute, watching her struggle with demons he could only imagine.
    Alice looked at her hands. “I guess that wasn’t my call to make, was it? Sorry. Your life, my life, cars on the expressway—they all look alike, don’t they?” Uncomfortably she smoothed her wet skirt over her hips, eyed the filthy T-shirt sticking to his skin. “Oh, gee, look, some hostess,
huh? Here I am keeping you standing around in wet clothes when what you really need to do is change your life…” She rubbed her forehead. “Sorry, Freudian slip, long morning. It’s my life that needs to change. Urn, look, let me get you some towels and, um, what, a razor, some sweatpants, sweatshirt...” She moved through the tiny house as she spoke, collecting items as she came to them. “I think I’ve got some fat pants left from before my diet last year—yeah, here they are, these should do.” She piled everything into Gabriel’s arms. “Anything else? Scissors, shaving