The Fall of Alice K. Read Online Free PDF Page A

someone didn’t bother tucking in. Abandoned farms were like homeless hitchhikers ready to take a ride from anybody who passed.

    Alice knew that the Krayenbraak farm was a teetering farm but it didn’t have any mismatched clothing. Its troubles were hidden behind a facade of order and tidiness: no loose hinges, no loose barbed wire, no loose shingles.
    Three miles from the Krayenbraak farm her father stopped the car at a “cornfield corner,” an intersection where the cornfields obstructed the view in all four directions. Alice thought for a moment that he was simply being his cautious self or that he might be stopping to appreciate the beauty of the flourishing cornfields, but then she saw her mother’s shoulders tighten and knew this was the moment they had chosen for the dam of silence to be broken.

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    As her father drove slowly through the intersection, the dam broke with her mother’s sharp-edged voice from the front seat: “Do those people speak English?”
    â€œOf course,” said Alice quickly. “Nickson will be at Midwest and Mai will be at Redemption. You know that. She has a scholarship.”
    â€œThe mother speaks English?”
    â€œNot much,” said Alice. “Not yet.”
    â€œWhat kind of name is Nickson?” asked her mother, and for the first time since they had started driving, she turned toward the backseat. Alice couldn’t tell if her expression was genuinely curious or if she was mocking the name.
    â€œNot sure,” said Alice.
    â€œNick-son, Nick-son,” repeated Aldah.
    â€œCould they have named their son after President Nixon?” That was her father’s voice.
    â€œI could ask him,” said Alice. “It didn’t seem strange to me.”
    â€œThey sure are small, aren’t they?” said her mother.
    â€œCompared to us, most people are small,” said Alice.
    That made her father chuckle, but Alice figured he was probably chuckling to keep the conversation from getting into awkward territory where their daughter would turn on them and accuse them of who-knows-what. Alice was in no mood to accuse them of anything. So far the conversation had kept them away from the truly awkward matter of her mother storming out of church. Let me dwell in calm waters for the rest of the ride home, Alice thought.
    Beside her, Aldah clenched her pink-stained handkerchief. Pink
peppermint stains marked the corners of her lips. Alice unwrapped the wadded-up bumper sticker, took Aldah’s stained handkerchief, and rewrapped the bumper sticker around it.
    â€œStop,” said Aldah when they came to a corner that did have a stop sign.
    â€œVery good,” said Alice “Now watch for the ‘Slow’ sign on the next hill.”
    â€œMcDonald’s.”
    â€œNo, that’s not McDonald’s. That mailbox says ‘Duh-Duh-Dykstra.’”
    â€œCheerios.”
    â€œYou’re being silly.”
    Aldah giggled, then laid her head against Alice. “Nap,” she said.
    Aldah laid her head onto Alice’s lap, but before she could sleep they were home to the Krayenbraak farm. Her mother had the oven set so that her one-dish meal was ready. Her father opened with prayer, and then the language of grim silence began. The stale kitchen air was filled with the gibberish of hogyard smells assailing the odors of a hotdish embellished with Hamburger Helper. The dry joints of the old oak table asked incoherent but shrill questions when Alice’s father put his hand down firmly next to his plate. Her mother throttled the slim saltshaker when she picked it up, and then, in movements that were uncharacteristically quick for her, she shook the life out of it in a seeming effort to resuscitate the comatose hotdish.
    Alice took small bites, wanting her mouth to be free to utter real words in case she would suddenly have to come to the defense of the Vangs, but it was Aldah’s presence that spoke most