After Alice

Chapter 10: Robert Returns

***TRIGGER WARNING***

There is a scene of sexual violence in the second part of the chapter, and it is brief. Please take care if this is triggering for you.

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Alice

December 19 - 20, 1976

Dear Mary Ellen,

It's strange how crystal clear my memories from thirty years ago are. I can't remember what happened yesterday, or what I had for lunch today (although it is all liquid and unrecognizable anyway). Sometimes I can't even recognize your sister, but the weeks and months leading up to your birth are still in brilliant focus for me.

Today, I want to tell you about what happened when I went back to Troy. Leo's predictions were correct. Two weeks after FDR died, Hitler was dead, and the German Army was in retreat. By mid-June, I was back at the Albany train station with my in-laws to meet Robert. I remember I was wearing the same powder blue suit I had on when I visited Leo two months before, but there was no excitement in my heart. Like everyone else, I held an American flag and waved it as the GIs spilled onto the platform.

His mother saw him first and gave a squeal of joy, followed by his father's grunts and shouts. I mustered a smile. I let his parents fawn over him first while I hung back a little. Robert soon broke away from them and pulled me into a tight embrace.

"I missed you, babe," Robert said into my ear as he held me in a vice gripe. "Don't cry. I'm home now and everything is going to be grand."

I nodded and let my tears do the talking. The less I said, the better. I vowed to be a blank canvas for Robert to paint his favorite pictures of me on. That was the path of least resistance. Maybe one day, I thought, I would grow into the role of his wife and come to love it.

At last, he released me from his arms and stepped back to examine me. I also looked at him. I noticed there were wrinkles around his eyes that hadn't been there before. His dark blond hair had been closely cropped in a crew cut, and his skin looked tanned, almost leathery. His grey eyes had a flinty look, like they were used to scrutinizing devastation. I wondered what he had seen over there. Did he witness his comrades dying, did he see women and children being killed?

After scanning my face, Robert said, "You look great, Alice. I'm glad you were keeping up your appearances while I was gone."

I didn't know if this was a compliment or an insinuation, since he had expressed doubts about my fidelity in countless letters. I smiled back at him as sweetly as I could, but his mother chimed in with her own observations.

"She's been dolled up ever since she took that trip to New York City." She talked loudly about how I went to visit a Jewess named "Ms. Leona Gershowitz," in Manhattan, and claimed I went on "a wild spree, going to nightclubs and vaudeville shows full of the most nefarious sorts."

I seethed at Rachel's poisonous lies, but I held my tongue. Then Robert cut through the tension with a rumble of laughter. "So, you were having some fun while I was gone Alice, why didn't you tell me?" He put his hand on the back of my neck and squeezed it firmly. "I like your hairstyle," he told me with a wink. "It suits you. All the working girls in France had bobs like that."

His mother admonished him, and I felt queasy in my stomach. I sat on Robert's large duffle bag and took some deep breaths, while his mother railed on about decency.

When we got home to Burden Avenue, Robert regarded his parents' shoe shop with disdain and asked his father how business had been. Arnold Rigley complained about how all the old customers had either retired or gone to war, leaving the women to run the factories. With the shortages, he had to give his shoes away for free. Robert clapped him on the back and told him that everything was going to change now that he was home. He already had a job interview lined up at the State's Attorney's office. He was going to move us to a big house in a new development uptown as soon as he could. Then his parents could sell their business and retire.