“You okay?”
Her mother turned her eyes from Alice and leaned forward. She tried to turn the metal lawn chair into a rocker, which only made a rhythmic grating sound on the porch floor. “As okay as okay can be.” She lifted her head and stared out through the screens, not at Alice. “It’s just life,” she said. “I don’t think my faith can sustain me.”
Alice didn’t know if her mother was pushing her away with that comment or inviting her in. Alice stepped in: “Sustain you through what? What are you going through?”
“You don’t know? Intelligent as you think you are, are you really telling me that you don’t know?” There was an edge to her mother’s voice, almost disgust—as if she thought the answer was so obvious that only a fool would ask.
Alice paused and took a deep breath. “No, I don’t know. What are you going through?”
A steer moaned mournfully from the feedlot, and Alice worried for a second that she might have missed some ailment when she fed them. Then another steer moaned in response. They were just talking to each other in a sweet eunuchs’ conversation.
“What does any person go through when they realize there’s no hope,” said her mother. “And that there should be no hope. Hope is not a way of honoring the Lord, it’s a way of insulting Him. Selfish wishes. Hope is greed disguised.”
Never before had Alice imagined that her mother’s scattered and so often scathing thoughts could come together in such chilling generalizations. “Mother,” she said, and she paused and thought before going on. “How much time do you spend thinking like this? And how do I fit into your thinking?”
“You?” she said. “You. You’ll find your way.” She paused even longer than Alice had paused. “If you can ever find it in your heart to learn humility,” she said in a voice of bitter finality.
“All right,” Alice said quickly. “Anything else?”
“If you ever stop thinking that the world revolves around you. Stop acting as if you can go your own way without thinking about other people. You think you’re so clever. I can read that look on your face. I know you. I know you better than anyone knows you. I know you think everybody else is stupid.”
“Mother.” Alice’s throat was tightening. “I know you’re not stupid. Just confusing. But don’t attack me. I don’t deserve that.”
Alice was not going to show her mother any tears. In Alice’s mind, her mother had lured her into a serious talk only to turn on her when her guard was down. Is this what they meant by sucker punch? How could she say Alice went her own way when most of her life was spent trying to help others? Aldah. Her father. The farm work. At school, she helped stupid, untalented singers who couldn’t tell an E-flat from a pig’s grunt. And, Lord knows, she had done more than her fair share of trying to help her mother by helping Aldah. Even helping her father was helping her mother. If Alice didn’t do the chores, would her mother be doing them? Alice didn’t think so. She pitied her pathetic mother at that moment, but she hated her mother for making her feel the way she was feeling. Whatever she was going through, it was not Alice’s fault. Her mother put Alice in debate mode.
“I thought you said you were bothered by everything in the world, not just me. I’m not measuring up to your standards, is that it?”
A taunting blank stare and silence.
“I thought we were having a conversation.”
“I’ve said what needs saying,” said her mother.
“What are you saying? Are you saying that I’m not doing my fair share around here? Is that what you’re saying? Just tell me. Is that what you’re saying?”
“I told you,” she said coolly. “I’m not sure my faith can sustain me.”
“And I asked you, ‘Sustain you through what ?’” The cold stare turned into a cutting glance that told Alice to speak more quietly.
“Through Y2K,” she said. “One grand cycle has completed its arc, and the world as we know it is going to end.”
“Oh Mother, don’t be one of those people, please.”
“I don’t think we can be saved.”
“Saved from what? Saved from destruction? Saved from a blackout? Saved from hell, fire, and brimstone? Saved from what, I ask!”
“Shush up,” her mother said. “I think you know. You seem to think you know everything else. Aldah is the one to watch.”
“What on earth does that mean?”
“She is the one who is leading the way down. She is the messenger of what is in store for all of us.”
Alice wished there could have been witnesses who could see that her mother was the one who was pulling everything and everybody down, not Aldah. Her mother was a whirlpool of darkness. Even when Aldah reflected their bad feelings back at them, she was still their messenger of hope. She was the one who could teach them how to trust the moment without fear. Alice was convinced that Aldah was a threat to her mother’s gloomy view, so her mother had to shoot her down. It was that simple.
“Why do you always have to look at the dark side? Why do you always have to make all of us feel bad?”
Alice waited for her mother to respond, but she just sat there. Alice didn’t wait for the ice cube to melt: she walked back into the house. Her father sat in his swivel chair reading the newspaper and seemed unaware of the conversation that had just transpired on the porch. Aldah was still sitting at the table, with that calm expression that suggested she was daydreaming contentedly. Alice went over and combed Aldah’s hair, then led her into the living room and told her that she could watch television for an hour. Alice pushed her sister’s hair back over her tiny ear, and as the colorful pictures came onto the screen, the calm spread over her cheeks to produce a face of total contentment. If Aldah was a messenger of anything, her message was to live every moment for what it was worth. Looking at Aldah made Alice think of the line from the hymn that went, “It is well, it is well with my soul.”
While Aldah watched TV, Alice started a bath.
“There isn’t any hot water!” she yelled.
“Come out here,” said her father.
“What’s going on?”
“I turned off the hot-water heater.”
“Say again?”
“Keeping fifty gallons of water hot all day makes as much sense as letting your car run when you’re not using it.”
“I need a bath.”
“It can wait.”
“Wait? This dirt can wait?”
“Heat a little water on the stove and wash your face and hands.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’ll turn the hot water heater on for an hour at night. And that’s it.”
“What’s going on?”
“We have to conserve.”
“I do conserve.”
“You’re going to have to conserve a lot more.”
“We have plenty of water.”
“Water’s not the problem. Heating it is. At least a hundred a month.”
“This is nuts.”
“It’s common sense.”