“Soup,” she said when she saw Alice watching her. “We’ll be eating lots of soup.”
Alice left her alone to do whatever she had to do. She was trying to boil something out of herself. She thought the bubbles on the surfaces of the boiling pots would release her troubles into the air.
When she finished her boiling of vegetables, she brought another pan of water to a boil and dumped in four small packets of instant oatmeal. This was breakfast. Alice wanted to ask her which recipe book she was using, but didn’t.
“Merciful Father, we come unto thee with thankful hearts, thanking thee for the abundance thou hast bestowed upon us . . . ,” her father prayed.
“Dad,” Alice said when he finished, “I’m sorry, but what was that all about? Abundance? You thought, like, maybe God would find that funny?”
“Don’t talk like that,” said her mother. “If you’re going to open your mouth, open it to eat.”
Her mother was reprimanding her because commenting on a person’s communication with God was sacrilegious. You didn’t stick your hand into that fire. You didn’t comment on somebody’s prayer—unless it was the prayer of somebody with a false religion because they were reaching out to a figment of their imaginations.
Alice’s father stared—no, he glowered at her. “As long as we have lips to offer thanks, we will offer thanks.”
Alice could feel Aldah absorbing the tension at the table.
“It’s all right,” said Alice. “Eat, Aldah. Just eat.”
Without warning her mother made a bold announcement: “We need to have Aldah go live at Children’s Care.”
“What?” Alice’s response was quick as an “ouch.”
“We decided it was best,” said her father.
“We?”
“Your mother and I.”
Alice leveled her eyes at her mother. “Your mother and I?”
“Your father and I,” said her mother.
“The two of you decided this little life-changing event? This little ‘Let’s break up the family, no questions asked’ event?”
Alice pushed her plate away. Her urge was to behave like her mother and bolt from the unpleasant scene, but that would only have left this ridiculous idea unchallenged. “Oh, who cares what Alice thinks about this little decision to shove a family member out the door so we don’t have to look at her anymore. Just get rid of her. Vamoose. Is that what you decided? Like what kind of ice cream to buy for dessert or something?”
“As if you didn’t know it was coming,” said her mother.
“It’s a decision that parents have to make, not children,” said her father.
Alice stared at her mother, not her father. It had to have been her mother who came up with the idea to dump Aldah. Her mother could get cold and calculating when she wanted to. She had a way of making ideas that were not good ideas sound as if they were. She had worked her father over—and he had caved. If a stare of disdain had any power at all, it would have leveled her mother on the spot.
“It was a hard decision,” said her father. “We’ve been thinking about it for a long time.”
“Thinking and talking about it,” said Alice. “Is that right? Talking about it?” She kept her eyes leveled at her mother.
“Yes,” said her mother. “Talking about it.”
“I didn’t hear any talking,” said Alice. “Where was I when all of this talking was going on? What am I, something you can just ignore and talk around? Pretend I don’t exist, just shove under the rug and ignore? Like a mouse turd?”
“That kind of talk has to stop,” said her father.
“It will be for the best,” said her mother.
“That’s stupid! An institution won’t help her! Look what she’s learned from me. You think you can just dump her out of our lives? Export her? Just like that? And the special-ed teachers said she was improving.”
“That’s not what the scores say,” said her mother.
Alice argued, railed, screamed, accused, and finally pleaded.
“I’ll come home earlier after school,” she said. “I’ll spend more time with her after supper. I’ll talk to the special-ed teachers about what we can do at home.”
Her parents were a stubborn unit. They had clearly planned to let her rant and not budge. Alice was a debater, and both of her parents knew better than to try taking her on with reason and evidence. They just took her on with their mantra: “We’ve thought about this for a long time, and we believe it is best for everyone.” They were even ready on the money issue: evidently, total financial disclosure cleared the way for state aid.
Her calm father was a fully converted accomplice. Aldah would be spending one more week living at home and going to her special-ed classes during the day. After that, she would leave their house and become a full-time resident at Children’s Care, fifteen miles away in Groningen City. Her visits home and their visits to Children’s Care would be limited. Her sister institutionalized! It was bizarre! It was wrong!
Her mother waited until she could see that Alice felt defeated. Then she gave the final push: “You shouldn’t be so possessive of your sister.”
Her mother knew how to drop the last straw, but Alice didn’t collapse. She walked away and went to bed without speaking.
When Alice came down for breakfast the next morning, her parents were not yet in the kitchen, but there sat Aldah, alone, her hands folded on the oak table. This was not like her to be up without someone waking her, the little sound sleeper, and Alice worried that Aldah might have understood the Children’s Care talk a little too well and was so upset by it that she couldn’t sleep.
Aldah had chosen to sit in Alice’s chair and at her place at the table, but she did not have any food in front of her. She was barefoot and in her underwear but was wearing one of Alice’s long-sleeved blue work shirts, which hung down onto the bulge of her stomach. She was humming to herself while staring at one of the framed pictures on the kitchen wall, a mountain scene with a waterfall and deer drinking from a stream. Aldah could dream of being somewhere other than Dutch Center too.
Her sister sitting by herself humming at the kitchen table. It was a lovely thing to see. This was not the image and these were not the sounds of a troubled child who was afraid to go off to an institution.
Alice stood still and listened, trying to hear what song Aldah might be humming, but she was humming a medley of melodies. “Jesus Loves Me” elided with “Three Blind Mice” elided with “Away in a Manger,” and each stanza, if she was dividing them into stanzas, ended with the final notes of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.”
Aldah hadn’t brushed her hair, and strands swirled in every direction, but she had taken the time to put on her glasses. Her humming continued, almost gleefully. Aldah had found a freedom to live happily in a little fantasy life, free from the other members of her family and even free from the television set. There was a beauty and independence here that an institution would destroy.
Alice did not want to disturb Aldah’s sweet contentment, but she couldn’t resist moving closer. Aldah turned and looked up at Alice and smiled. Alice put her hands on her sister’s shoulders and said, “Keep humming, my angel. It’s very pretty.”
Aldah did keep humming, louder than before, and when she got to “Old MacDonald,” Alice sang along with her sister’s humming: “Ee-aye-ee-aye-oh!”
Aldah giggled. “McDonald’s,” she said and giggled again.
“Yes,