Moonlight

Twenty-One

The next few weeks were a time of recovery. The bruises, visible on Alice's body, slowly healed. The family coalesced around her, politely and distantly initially, as if they were worried they might bruise her some more if they came too close.

The children looked at their mother, that broken mouth and those familiar eyes partially hidden by swollen eyelids, with awe and some fear. Their father, Tom, ushered them about and talked to them in hushed tones:

'Mother needs some rest... Not now... Gently...'

He was worried that they might bother her.

He hadn't asked her to tell him what had happened. He understood that she had undergone a big transformation and she wasn't the Alice he had known all those years. But he made it clear he wanted to get to know the new Alice.

They were now sleeping together. Alice had welcome him back. But he wouldn't dare touch her, and she was afraid that, if she touched him, he might feel pressured to perform something her had forgotten how to do.

In fact, they were more like two strangers when they were so close together, under the bed sheets, in the dark, than during the day.

They were like soldiers, doing everything together during the day, and sleeping in silence next to each other at night, living separate, different and unknowable lives within themselves.

When the bruises were gone, Alice felt that something else had disappeared with them: she no longer felt the urge to run away from her old life, to figure out things for herself. Now, she wanted to come back, to build a new life together with Tom and the children: it was now up to her to finally break down the last wall that kept her apart from the rest of her family.

The door rang. Tom looked at the young woman, and Alice simply said:

'She'll look after the kids for the night.'

They sat together with the children in the playroom for a moment. The babysitter asked the kids to show her some of the toys, and in a moment the ice was broken, and they were playing together.

'Get dressed: we're going out,' Alice told Tom. 'Nothing too formal.'

Outside the window, behind threadbare clouds, Alice saw the moon. A new phase. The satellite kept showing her different sides of itself in a revolving carousel. Tonight, this everchanging process held no mystery for Alice, no promise of a revelation: Alice felt wiser and more at ease with herself. She accepted the old adage that things change, and she was at peace with it. Her relationship with the world had changed: she was tired of being removed from people and sheltered from the joy – and the pain – that life brings. Her relationship with Tom was now bound to change, and she knew she was in charge of managing that process.

Tonight, the revolutions of the heaves also looked a little silly in their repetition. Like a magician's trick, once she knew how it was done, it looked too simple, and she felt like a fool for having fallen for it.

Alice and Tom hopped on a taxi. She gave the driver the address. Tom gave her a look: it was a look of surprise, not of derision. The joke was long gone.

Alice held his hand and looked outside the window, enjoying the show that the city put on at night. Who knew what he was thinking about.

The walked to the familiar door. The doorbell waiting to be rung, the camera above staring at them. Tom seemed nervous. Alice smiled to herself: she was sure he had come to places like this before. Just not with her. Just not in this neighbourhood.

They stood at the door for a moment.

'You probably want to know where I go at night. You have never asked, and I'm thankful for your patience, but now it's important for you to know.'