K: Alice #2

My mother died on my ninth birthday. Beat that. Picture it: Young
girl, white dress, white cake. A phone call, if they had phones. They
didn't. Instead, picture this: Old woman in gray, taking away the cake
and saying, "Somebody tell her, dammit."

Somebody did. And then somebody produced my sister, a redhead like my
little brother only without the piss and vinegar. That would come
later.

When you are nine you imagine calm segues in the schoolyard, setting a
nice table with praise, scuffed shoes that draw notice for your efforts
to hide the marks. You do not imagine, "Sit down and be quiet, child.
Your mama is dead."

Ah, but that would be too simple, wouldn't it? An easy answer for all
my ills. I had no ills, really, because I did what I should. Would you
hold it against the president for pressing the red button? It was red
in my day, anyway.

The first time I said "fuck" out loud was in my thirties, my children
in the back seat of my car while I waited for a neighbor to finish her
business in the supermarket. "Fuck," I said, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,
fuck." And you know what? It made no difference, even though the
diarrhea had already seeped down my thighs and that bitch still hadn't
wheeled her fucking cart out to the car. Later an ambulance would come
and I would hear that idiot ask how I'd ever driven home. "Force of
will," I would have answered, if I'd had any.