Alice's mother, Dianne, handed over two aspirin and a glass of water. "No more complaining. You have a headache, take something for it. Every time something is the least bit wrong, you act as if the world is crashing down around you and there's nothing to be done about it." Dianne had never been a drinker. She didn't like the way it made her feel. She liked seeing every piece on the chessboard, every duck in the line.
But Alice, twenty-four years old, had grown weary of being her mother’s pawn, a duckling marching to execution. She wondered if this attitude of her mother’s – this insistence – had actually instigated her pounding vodka tonics. When she'd met with everyone at the bar, the group had been drinking already for several hours, during which Alice had been keeping sober company for her mother, helping with chores, making dinner. She felt too old to be her mother's keeper, but her job didn't pay enough for her to afford her own place. And her mother preferred her there. Demanded her to be there. Considered her ungrateful whenever she left the house if not on an errand for her. Maybe that's why she drank three vodka tonics in thirty minutes, not to "play catch-up" as she'd stated, but to erase the short-term memory of her mother.
She couldn't tell if John had judged her for getting slurry so quickly. Something in his eyebrows said he did, and she disliked him for it, but remained drawn to him. A part of her intellect defended him against her instincts of him. She watched him turn away from her and laugh with Susan about something, And her eyebrows did something weird too. Alice had wondered if they were deliberating on their judgment of her. No subliminal part of Alice grew defensive of Susan though. Recognizing the little pact between her and John, Alice’s brain hated her more or as much as her guts.
She closed her eyes and imagined squeezing Susan's long neck.
Then she became horrified by her own thoughts and drained them from her mind.
Her imagination voided, the darkness of her mind turned to the darkness of her eyelids, which withered against sunlight, the fault lines of her brain rifting. And her mother’s voice, " you're not even fucking listening to me."
"What, Mom?"
"How did you get home last night? Your car's in the driveway, but did you drive?"
Alice thought. She couldn't remember. The end of the night was hazy and she'd blacked out before it was over. Perhaps it would come back to her. It sometimes did after breakfast or a nap.
"You couldn't possibly be that stupid, could you?"
She wasn't sure. She felt stupid. Her mother was right. She probably had drove and she was probably lucky to be alive.
But maybe not. She certainly didn't feel lucky.
08.16.2017
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