Free Saving Alice by David Lewis Page A

together.
    Donna’s birthday party .
    Paul raised his hand and, once again, snapped his fingers for Jennifer to refill his drink. I closed my eyes in self-disgust. How could I have forgotten?
    Jennifer chose this moment, with big Larry hovering by, to cut Paul off.
    Paul glared angrily at her. Suffering humiliation in front of Larry didn’t help.
    “Let it go, Paul,” I said. I leaned forward over the sick feeling in my gut.
    A suddenly riled Jennifer gave him a warning look, unwilling to budge an inch. “I think you’d better leave.” She turned to me, caught my eye, and I immediately picked up on it.
    Without further remarks, I grabbed my coat. “I’m driving you home.”
    Larry grinned down at him, but Paul made no effort to move. “No thanks. I’ll stay until they throw me out.”
    I expelled an angry breath and bounded for the door. Larry called my name, but I ignored him. Outside in the cold, I jumped into the car, twisted the ignition key, then paused. What was my rush? Obviously, the party I’d forgotten to attend had long since disbanded.
    I sighed into the excruciating silence, and it all came back to me. Two nights ago, Alycia had reminded me to pick up the cake after work and then hide it in the garage. “And don’t forget, Dad.” One of the few complete sentences she had sent my way in the recent past.
    Who picked up the cake? I wondered.
    I mentally retraced my steps back to the last minutes before leaving the office. I’d even gone to SuperCity to select Donna’s last-minute gift. How could I have forgotten?
    I imagined the entire party scenario—what Larry might have said to smooth things over and how Donna would have pretended nothing was wrong. At some point, Alycia would have begun sulking, and in a roomful of Donna’s closest friends, the uncomfortable silences would have grown. “Where’s Stephen?” someone would eventually ask as if they didn’t know any better.
    Perhaps Donna was relieved when I didn’t show, I thought as pride gave way to the supremacy of rationalization. The last few months had been particularly difficult for us.
    No, I corrected myself. The last few years…
    I sighed again. Face it, pal, the last fourteen years haven’t been a picnic for either of you….
    But the idea of my poor wife suffering through the embarrassment of my thoughtlessness crowded out every other self-serving excuse.
    “You can’t hurt me anymore,” she’d told me three weeks ago, and at the moment, I actually hoped this was true.
    I was still sitting in the parked car when Paul finally shuffled outside, huddled within his winter gray parka. He didn’t notice me. Larry followed shortly after, hunched within his long black overcoat, heading in the opposite direction to his own car. At last, I pulled out of the parking space, following Paul as he ambled down the sidewalk. When I honked to get his attention, he nearly fell over from the noise. Recovering his balance, he shuffled over. I thumbed toward my passenger seat. “Get in, and I’m not asking.”
    Removing keys from his pocket, Paul dangled them. His warm alcohol-saturated breath plumed into the frozen air. “I got my own car.”
    “You’re in no condition.”
    He shook his head. “I’m only seven blocks away.”
    He tapped my car door, gave me a sloppy salute, and stumbled with the effort. When I opened my mouth to protest, he was already lurching away.
    Sighing angrily, I briefly considered physically wrestling the keys from his possession. Instead, I shifted the car into drive and headed home.

C HAPTER S EVEN
    W e lived in a tiny three-bedroom shutterless rancher close to the corner of Twelfth Avenue and Northview Lane. Shortly after Donna and I married, we’d scoured the newspapers and found the newly built dark brown house advertised for a song. It was located a few blocks north of the trailer court, also just north of where Susan once lived, but less than a mile from Uglyville.
    After the winter snow melted, we