Alice’s Tea Party

by Shizumi Kurohane

When she was only six, she had two friends. They were both boys and she remembered them always holding hands. She liked to have tea parties with her little stuffed animals on a child’s low table and little low chairs. She would wear her mother’s boas and high heels. Her two friends would come to have some air tea with her.

The boys rarely spoke. Rather, they listened to her talk. She spoke to them about her visits to her mother at the clinic and how she heard her father cry at night. They never said anything about it. They would only listen and sip her invisible tea. She told them about how she had to see a lady every week and talk to the lady but the lady would talk back; tell her how silly she was being. She hated that lady.

When the tea party was over, she would collect her plastic tea set and stuffed animals and go back into the house. The two boys would wait for her to go in and walk back the way they’d come—still holding hands. She didn’t know where they lived. She was having a tea party one day and they just showed up at the end of the lawn, staring up at her little world. She had smiled and they came up the lawn. That was how their tea parties together started. It always the same: no words, just actions.

She could remember the day when her father came to her and told her that she couldn’t visit mommy anymore. She looked up at him questioningly and he had elaborated softly, telling her that mommy went to heaven and couldn’t see her anymore but would watch over her always. That day, her teacup was filled with tears. The two boys stared at her from where they stood as she leaned over the little table and shuddered. On either side, they draped their small arms around her frame and hugged her silently.

From then on, it was always the three of them. In Elementary, they played with no one else. In Junior High, they hung out with the same people. When the three got in to high school, the two boys combined to make her family unit.

“Alice,” they would ask at the same time, “Did you sleep alright? We have your lunch. Did you do your homework? Do you need any help?”

They sat on either side of her in class and always looked out for her.

“Alice,” they would say in a unified whisper, “You’re daydreaming! Pay attention or the teacher’ll pick on you...”

She would smile in apology and worked diligently for them.

She was like their daughter. Aaron was the tallest. He acted rough and protective, like a father. Abel was a few inches shorter. He was quiet and calm and Alice knew he made the lunches. They all loved one another like a family should even though none of them were related.

Her dad wasn’t there anymore. He was somewhere else—his mind far away, somewhere where she couldn’t reach.

She became estranged from him.

When her mother passed, it left a void in him. He tried to work many hours to distract himself from it. Alice often went over to the boys’ house. She would eat and sometimes sleep there until dawn. Then she would sneak away back to her house and change for school. The truth was she dreaded her house. Her father’s presence made her cold and unresponsive. She would never let the boys come in.

Many birthdays came and went. All of them were spent with Aaron and Abel only. Others always asked what she would do for her birthday, but eventually stopped when her response was always the same. Abel would make a big, delicious cake and Aaron would find the trick candles to make Alice laugh. The three of them would blow them out together. Afterwards, Aaron would present a gift that both he and Abel had picked out and it would be something Alice had been wanting. She never said what it was aloud, but Aaron and Abel would always know.

--

“Hey, Alice, is it true?” a classmate asked.

Alice blinked up at the girl. “Is what true?”

“Your mother; was she really insane? Did she really hang herself with the bed sheets?”

Her world blurred and her breath left her lungs. She could feel only her heartbeat hammering against her constricted chest. She closed her eyes.

Then she felt a calming hand on her back. She looked up sharply to find Abel glaring at the cruel girl before him and hugging her tightly against his chest. Aaron was in front of her, blocking her view of the malicious face.

“Get out of here,” she heard him growl, “before I make you.”

The girl tsked and left the room.

“Shh,” Abel’s voice flooded her ears.

She could only stare ahead blankly—tears forming thin rivers down the curves of her face.

Aaron was on the other side of her now, holding her as well. Both their heads rested against her own.

People often picked on her. They would read some nonsense on the internet and gossip would spread until they just had to know. Always, Aaron and Abel would be there to put them back in their places and comfort her and tell her that everything was alright—that she had them and that was all she needed.

And she would take deep breaths and feel their souls brushed against her own and know that they spoke the absolute truth. After, Abel would caress her cheek and kiss her forehead. Reluctantly, Aaron would do the same and she would smile. Gripping both their hands in hers, she would go on with her life. Walking tall and strong, she would meet the future on their shoulders.

The End