R: Alice #9

When I was still with my husband my favorite part of the day was
when he would leave. It didn't matter where he went to - the grocery
store, the liquor store, some cheap slut he'd met in a bar - just as
long as he was gone. The best money I ever spent was a down payment on
a barber shop so he could have a job. That kept him out of the house
quite a bit.

I played solitaire a lot when I had the house to myself, making the bed
so I'd have a smooth surface to lay the cards down. My kids were never
ones to stay inside when they could be running through the bayou or
making trouble with the neighbors. That's the nice thing about Houston
- hot as hell in the summer but you can still push kids outside and not
worry about them freezing to death or being caught up in a tornado. A
flood, maybe, but tornados are scarce.

I tried playing solitaire here, on this hospital bed, but it's too
narrow. Also I can't sit Indian-style like I used to, doling out the
cards in their neat rows and picking them up easily. It hurts my hips
too much.

Whenever I won a game of solitaire I would stack the cards in order,
one by one, saving the King of Hearts until last. He was always last. I
don't know why; superstition, I guess. It seemed to me that the King of
Hearts was willing to wait until the end, taking his place on top of
the stack. Maybe I thought I was sending out some message, over the
airwaves or to God or whatever, asking for my own King of Hearts, or
anyone with a heart, at least.

Or maybe not. Why are hearts associated with love, anyway?

Even if I could play my solitaire here on this bed, it wouldn't be the
same. Gone are my husband's playing cards, which were tiny
reproductions of 1950's pin-up girls. In their place are the standard
hospital issue, inoffensive, the jokers resembling clowns on children's
birthday cakes. Like the hospital food, the playing cards are simple
and bland, probably to keep the blood from stirring. It wouldn't do to
have the patients excited too much.

I'm constantly interrupted, too. One nurse, a horse-faced Christian
girl named Tina, visits me whenever she can. I have not asked for her
visits. She comes under some pretense or another: new toilet paper, a
washed bedpan. Also she likes my "sass." That's what she calls it -
"sass." I call it being a bitch, but who has time to argue?

Tina is full of dreams. She's engaged - to an auto mechanic - and she
wants three children, possibly four, if the Lord sees fit. I told her
she ought to get fit for a diaphragm first and worry about children
later, when she's older, but she just said, "Oh, you." Tina is the type
of girl who calls caesarian scars a miracle, the type you'd like to
slap some common sense into if only she'd stop smiling.

I had dreams once. No, that's not right. I still do. I'm only
thirty-seven, after all. I haven't had time to grow out of them. But
I'm more realistic now. I will not be living in a penthouse, or
traveling to Europe. I will never own a Mercedes. I won't be winning a
lottery anytime soon.

And, I suppose, I won't get to watch my children grow up. Am I really
that awful, putting them at the bottom of my list? Maybe, but look at
me. I mean really look. When have I ever gotten my priorities
straight?