Saving Alice Read Online Free Page A

the final drop of his drink, stood to his feet, and considered his surroundings as if he’d forgotten where he was.
    He glanced over at my father again, tipped his cowboy hat toward me, and headed for the door. I squinted at the light flooding my eyes, just before the door slammed shut.
    My father, as if he’d finally awakened, turned to Sam, and thumbed toward the door. “Know that guy?”
    I leaned over to catch Sam’s reply: “Lost his farm couple years ago. Ain’t been the same since.” Sam made a twirling motion to the side of his ear.
    “Well, that’s not gonna happen to you,” my father said, patting Sam on the back. “So … like I said, options will get you the biggest bang for your buck…”
    Still staring at the door, I felt a tap on the shoulder. I turned halfway in my stool, and Phil leaned over the bar and whispered, “Just for your information, kid, Jim bought some worthless stock from your ol’ man about three years ago. It ain’t your fault. Just forget what he said.”
    I considered this for a moment. My father hadn’t even recognized Jim. I turned toward my dad again, this time taking a real hard look. Jim’s right, I realized.
    But he’s wrong about me .

C HAPTER T HREE
    Y our father’s behavior is incongruent with his words” is the closest Donna ever came to criticizing my dad. At the time, we were driving to see my folks in Frederick, a small town of barely three hundred, twenty miles north of our town, Aberdeen.
    “You mean he’s a fake,” Alycia inserted from the backseat. I glanced in the rearview mirror. Alycia cast me an I’m-right-aren’t-I? look as if the truth was all that mattered.
    “He’s still your grandfather, Alycia,” Donna said softly.
    “Sor-r-ry. My grandfather is a fake,” Alycia corrected herself.
    Donna caught my eye, probably expecting something more than the shrug I gave her. She shook her head with thinly concealed frustration and turned to the window.
    Much to his obvious annoyance, my father had never found any psychological weakness in Alycia. By the time she was five years old, she’d already gotten him figured out.
    “Did Grandpa really lock you in a closet?” she asked as if she wouldn’t have been surprised. We were sitting in the stuffy car at the end of that afternoon’s visit, waiting for Donna to say good-bye to my mother. Sometimes their good-byes took longer than their actual visits. Dad had long since retired to his garage where he pretended handyman proficiency.
    I gave the rearview mirror a knowing wink. “Rarely overnight.”
    Alycia made a face, then peppered me with follow-up questions. Were you scared of him? Did he spank you? Did you have lots of chores? Why did Grandpa and Grandma get married anyway? Which contained the hidden question: how could anyone marry Grandpa?
    Then came the question that pierced my heart: “Were you poor then?”
    I felt my face redden and sensed her unasked query: Have we always been poor?
    “Yes,” I replied.
    I glanced out the car window to watch Donna give another quick hug and break free from my mom, and when I again looked in the rearview mirror, Alycia cast me another raised eyebrow as if to say: To be continued, Dad. Don’t think you’re off the hook. In the meantime, please think about my questions, and consider offering more than oneword answers….
    On the whole, Alycia’s inquiries carried a not-so-hidden agenda: secret scavenging. When her questions got too direct, I gave her the evil-eye-dare, which she only returned. “Duck all you want, Dad, but you can’t hide.”
    Frankly, I was more than happy to oblige since, fortunately, she was barking up the wrong tree. At the very least, telling her about my childhood served as an effective distraction. Besides, there wasn’t anything inherently mysterious about my childhood. In spite of my father’s natural-born salesmanship and my mother’s housecleaning services, we were, as Alycia suspected, dirt poor. Over time, she heard