Alice & Oliver by Charles Bock

Author:Charles Bock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2016-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

Little Edie

TUESDAY EVENING, AN hour or so after dinner, Alice awoke from a nap and discovered white, hot brightness along the surfaces of her eyes. She let out a cry, slammed her lids shut, felt residual burning. By then, floorboards were rumbling. Oliver—who’d just gotten home—was rushing into the bedroom. “Why are they even on?” Alice cried. “They’re off,” he assured, trying to get up to speed, asking, “What? What’s happening?” He again promised the lights were off, and by then Alice’s mother had joined them, and was agreeing, in a soothing tone, They’re off, honey. Now, from the depths of the apartment, the baby’s upset was audible. Alice fluttered, tried again; even a sliver was too much, her eyes too sensitive. Oliver was searching through her desk, hunting down the ward’s phone number, then thumping around, cursing each usual spot where he got reception. He gave up, used the house line, was put on hold. Finally a doctor told him that Alice’s sight troubles were most likely a latent side effect of the chemo. Oliver was advised to keep washing out Alice’s eyes with water, and that he should get an alcohol-free version of No More Tears. The ward was sending a prescription for stronger eyedrops to his pharmacy right now. If Alice did not improve, she needed to come into Whitman’s emergency care center.

So long as everything remained covered in shadows—people appearing as dark forms against a thinner black veil—Alice was okay. Moving her head was fine. Entering a new room, though, being hit by some kind of light for which she wasn’t braced, that she couldn’t handle. Blinds were pulled, their bedroom transforming into a bat cave; Alice lay in bed, let herself go sedentary. If she had to be trapped, she was not going to feel sorry for herself; she would not wallow, fretting about the implications of this new twist. She kept running a hand over her small bronze figurine, familiarizing herself with Guanyin’s grooves, her sudden points, her small indentations, that chip thing along her base, the rough ending to what Alice imagined as an elephant’s winding trunk.

“I’ll order a car service,” Oliver pleaded. “We swoop into the care center, fix it, in and out.”

“Can’t we just wait?”

Alice was more than ready to be over and done with lying in bed. But she did not want to go back there.

Oliver couldn’t say no to her request. He wasn’t going to. Not after where he’d just been. Rather, he offered a papal procession of damp washcloths, made it idiot-easy for Alice to rinse her eyes, anytime she needed. They bought out all the Chelsea drugstores’ No More Tears shipments, repeatedly flooded her pupils. A five-in-the-morning alarm waking the baby wasn’t an option; instead Oliver showed initiative and nipped at Alice’s lower lobe. The flesh was loose. His teeth applied just a bit more pressure, then he raised his mouth, nuzzled into her ear. “Time for your prescription drops.” She stirred, emitting a sleepy but satisfied moan.

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