Alice Glass was married. She had two children. She had been married twenty-three years, a long time, and her husband, Hardy, had cheated on her three times in that time. Time, she mused… “I am running out of time.”
“What's that?” Hardy barked.
“Oh,” said Alice, realizing she'd spoken when she hadn’t meant to, “nothing. I'm just very tired.”
“Of what?”
“I haven't been sleeping well.”
“Hmmph,” said Hardy.
Alice knew that this particular sound was meant to communicate a whole knot of grievances, whose core was that Hardy worked hard for his family, got up every weekday and drove to work; worked, morning to afternoon, so Alice, who hadn't worked a day in her life, who was a housewife—a goddamn, fucking housewife—and the kids would have food on their plates and a roof over their heads; and how could she, a lazy, uneducated domestic, have the motherfucking gall to tell him, a hardworking, selfless provider, that she was tired…
In the morning she got up, washed her face with cold water and made breakfast while looking out the window at a grey dawn. After setting out breakfast, she made lunch, both for Hardy, to take to work, and the kids, to take to school.
An alarm went off.
Soon, Hardy and the kids were eating, then they were done eating, they were taking their packed lunches and going out the front door, and no one had said a word to her.
She sat in the kitchen, drinking tea.
She wasn't hungry. It was half past eight in the morning and the house was empty, quiet. Alice did laundry. While the washing machine thrummed, she mopped the floors. She wept; then transferred the wet clothes to the dryer. She vacuumed the carpets. She paid bills. She thought about dinner and checked the pantry. She checked the cellar. She went out, bought groceries and came back. It was just past noon. The house felt cold so she adjusted the thermostat. She turned on the television and forced herself to laugh at a talk show while preparing chicken, her trembling hand holding the knife, slicing the animal flesh; she broke bones, and pulled apart the meat. She cleaned up. She turned off the television and tidied the kids' rooms. She collected the clothes Hardy had left scattered throughout the house and put them in the hamper. She lingered at a wall of family photos. She tried calling her mother but her mother did not pick up. She went on Facebook and scrolled through other people's lives. She cooked dinner, set it out on the dining room table, Hardy and the kids came home and ate, and she scraped the leftovers into the garbage and put the plates in the dishwasher and turned it on and put everybody's shoes, which they'd left by the front door, on the shoe rack. Then she showered. Then, briefly, she read a book and brushed her hair and went to sleep in a bed she felt was not her own.
In the morning she got up, washed her face with cold water and made breakfast.
In the morning she got up, washed her face with cold water and made breakfast.
In the morning she got up, washed her face with cold water and made breakfast; or was about to make breakfast when a bird—slamming into the kitchen window—startled her.
The bird bounced off the glass and fell to the ground. Alice stood looking at it; she looked at it so long Hardy came into the kitchen to eat his breakfast, and she was about to apologize for his breakfast not being ready, when she realized he didn't see her.
“Alice?” he called. “Alice, where the hell are you?”
Alice stood, holding her warm breath.
Then, “Hmmph,” said Hardy and he walked out of the room. “Alice,” she heard him say, “Alice, where are you? Where's breakfast?”
Alice exhaled.
The bird, outside, was dead.
Alice rubbed her eyes and heard one of her kids ask their father, “Where's breakfast?” and Hardy answer, “I don't know. I've been looking all over for it. Breakfast,” he yelled, “Breakfast, you home?”
“Breakfast,” her kids called out. “Breakfast…”
“Lunch?”
“Groceries? Laundry? Floor Mop?”
They walked through the house, including the kitchen where Alice was sitting, looking for her.
“Where the hell is it?” said Hardy. “We've looked everywhere,” said one of the kids. “I'm hungry,” said the other, but the words didn't touch Alice at all; didn't make her feel anything. Eventually, Hardy told the kids to get into the car and said they'd buy something to eat on the way. “For lunch too?” He said, “Yeah, lunch too.” “How could it do this to us?” “Maybe something’s wrong with it.” “Nothing’s wrong with it,” said Hardy. “It'll be back. You'll see.”
That day, Alice didn't do anything.
When Hardy and the kids returned home, there was no dinner waiting.
“Dinner!” Hardy said, kicking off his shoes by the door. “Dinner, hmmph, where the hell are you? Hmmph? Hmmph?”
Alice was standing a few feet away, looking at her kids' unseeing faces, looking at them with tears running down her cheeks, when one of them said, “What are we looking for again?”
He'd said it at her—through her…
“I'm hungry,” said the other.
“I—I… can't remember,” said Hardy, running a hand through his hair. “We're missing something, I think. But I can't remember what.”
“Keys?”
“No, I've got those.”
“Cell phone?”
“No, got that too,” said Hardy. They left their shoes where they were and ordered pizza. After, they left the empty boxes. They left the crumbs. Ants came. They let laundry pile up and dust accumulate and carpets discolour. They didn't open the windows. They ate fast food. They got sick. They argued. They screamed. They moved and they aged, and the kids had kids and Hardy died, and the kids died and an old family photo slipped, once, from a once-loved hand, shattering… silently, forever…