ICARA: Alison Falling

By Angie Gallion

Alison Hayes is set to fly or flee. When she follows her friend, Cici, to California she hopes it will be the beginning of a new, perfect life. She has spent her days trying to do something better, trying not to repeat the mistakes made by her alcoholic and broken mother. Yet, she is haunted by the only "right thing" she has ever done being the one

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beech House Books
• Release date: Dec 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781954309050

Angie Gallion

Angie Gallion has been a stage actor, an anti-money-laundering investigator, a photographer, and a paralegal. She has lived in Illinois, California, Missouri, and Georgia and has traveled to Greece, the Dominican Republic, Scotland, and Ireland. Angie dreams of traveling the country on wheels with her husband once her children are grown. She is currently rooted outside of Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband, their children, and their two French bulldogs. Angie’s writings usually deal with personal growth through tragedy or trauma. She explores complex relationships, often set against the backdrop of addiction or mental illness. Her first novel, Intoxic, was the 2016 bronze medalist in the Readers Favorite for General Fiction. That book was a twenty-five-year adventure in self-doubt and hesitation.

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Prologue

Cici was right, when she said the first day would be horrible. It was. I cried and stayed alone in my room and let the sorrow take me. Even through that day, however, there were moments when I just knew I had done the right thing. Moments when I saw her, held in Meredith’s arms, and knew she was going to have a wonderful childhood. The kiss that Meredith had dropped on my forehead was a gift, because in that one moment, I knew without a doubt that Little Miss, that Emily Ann, would grow up knowing love. In that one small kiss, I felt the love my daughter would know. She will have her hand held and she will have her toes tickled and her belly rubbed when she doesn’t feel good. She will have puppies to play with and cousins. She will have. She will have enough of everything, and she will do good things in the world because of it.

Part One: Spring

1

The deserts of Arizona had completely taken my breath away. I wish now that I had planned to come through at dusk or daybreak, like Cici had suggested, but I had slept through daybreak and woke with the sun already moving high in the sky. I had driven through the Painted Desert during the late hours of the morning, and it was still beautiful, with the stark shadows falling out on the sand from the sandstone hills and mounds. I almost wished my drive ended there, so I could stay in those painted dunes, but Cici was waiting in California, so I drove on. Hours and hours on.

Poway, California, sits north of San Diego proper, and it is nearly full dark when I pass the sign leading into the city. I miss my merge onto 67 toward Ramona and have to drive on down to another exit to get back to where I need to be. I finally merge onto 67 going toward Ramona and turn left onto Scripps Poway Parkway. Another five miles before I merge off the highway onto Pomerado Parkway, a main thoroughfare through the town. I make a left onto Tarzana and an immediate right onto Annabelle Drive and into a parking lot, serving as a sort of courtyard in the middle of a series of squat, two-story buildings. I look around at the building, perplexed. Cici said her cousin had a house. I reach over to grab her letter from the passenger seat and confirm the address, disappointment rising. When I’m convinced that I am at the right address, I pull Little Red into a spot and let the engine go silent, sitting for just a minute, enjoying the novelty of not being in motion. Reframing my expectations

Somewhere off in the distance sirens begin to wail. I step out into the night. A whisper of air dances across my skin, dry and hot, and I am caught for a moment in a wind devil, my hair rising in a vortex, up and away. I close my eyes and let the wind touch me, like hands lifting my hair, caressing my neck, wicking the sheen of perspiration that has coated my skin the entire long drive from Illinois. Little Red does not have air conditioning, and I feel wind battered and beaten from the miles driven with the windows down.

The sirens are closer, and when I open my eyes, I see the red and blue lights bouncing from the buildings, seconds before the two cruisers steer into the lot. I jump back against my car, out of their way, feeling guilty, feeling that low panic in my stomach, that rising of fear.

I haven’t done anything; they are not here for me.

The cars come to haphazard stops behind a blue sedan parked a couple of cars over. One officer steps out and, glancing at me, says, You need to get back inside. His eyes scan the remainder of the lot, finding it empty, and turns back toward the building, nodding at the other officer that all is clear.

I hear what I hadn’t heard before—chaos through the wind—now that the magic of that dry gust is gone. A thud sounds against a wall, then I hear voices yelling, a man, a woman. It’s a domestic disturbance. That’s what the police came for, somebody in a battle, throwing down. I should be unnerved, uncomfortable, this being my first landing in my new land, but the fight, the chaos feels like home. It feels normal. This is how people live, everywhere. That sudden understanding about the nature of life shows my mother to me in a different light. I judged her too harshly. I was too unforgiving, and this is just how people live.

I am here in California because Cici said her cousin had a room in her house I could rent. I came because it was Cici, my best good friend, and because it was a house, not a trailer, not an apartment, and that had felt like a move in the right direction.

The report of a gun echoes against the facing complex, and the cops hustle toward the building where the struggle is taking place. I slide back into my car, crouching low in my seat, and peer out into the night of blue and red. I wait. There are shouts, and I am taken back to the day Warren was taken by the police, to the sounds of the door being broken down, to his shouts into the phone, to their voices, the authority of their voices. Another shot rings out, and I draw my hands over my ears. I should leave. I should start my car and just leave. This isn’t a house. This isn’t what I came for.

I reach to put the key into the ignition and see the two cops exit the building, pushing a short, dark-haired man ahead of them. They wrestle him into the back of one the cars, and I notice his hands are strapped behind his back. The police are followed by four women, the first holding a cloth to the side of her face. The third one is Cici.

They are all talking, and I stay low in my seat. The key in my hand drops away from the ignition. One of the cop pulls out his notebook to fill in the paperwork.

Cici is letting her hair grow, and it softens her. It is her voice that I hear ring out, Of course she wants to press charges, but the woman with the cloth held to her face looks forlorn and shakes her head. I breathe. Cici looks like her head may explode, and I smile. There she is—Cici, conqueror of life. Of course, he’s going to be charged with something, even if the woman holding her face doesn’t want it. There are rules about guns, and surely you can’t shoot one off in the middle of an apartment complex. Public endangerment, or something.

I wait, watching the women, watching Cici, pacing and angry. Every inch of her skin glows with a fire burning inside, and I wonder how I never realized how beautiful she is. It’s more than just being pretty—she is vibrant, like all the atoms of her being are bouncing together at a higher rate than everybody else’s. I sit for a very long time, listening to them while red and blue lights flash through all the edges of the lot. A few people have come out of their apartments to see the excitement, huddling in small groups.

When the police are finished with their questions, they climb back into their cars and the lights stop flashing. The woman with the cloth reaches out to the man in the backseat, and a flare of anger sparks against my chest. I will never let a man hit me. I can just hear her saying, But he loves me. He didn’t mean to. Stupid woman. I put the key back into the ignition. I don’t have to stay.

But Cici is here.

When the police are gone, and when the women have gone back inside, when all the neighbors have floated back to their own spaces, I sit unnoticed for another half an hour, working my way through to this new reality. I have left chaos to find chaos, and my new understanding of the world is that all is chaos. I gather my nerve, hoping the drama is over.

I get out my car, go up to the door, and knock.

2

Sorry about the disturbance, she says, the door hanging between us.

Oh, that’s okay. I’m not here for that. My voice cracks from the long, quiet drive. I’m here to see Cici. The woman nods and turns her face into the room, calling out for Cici.

I hear movement through the living room, and Cici says, I still say you need to press charges, or the next time, he may shoot you for real. She steps past the wall and meets my eyes. We stand for a split second before she breaks into a slow smile and comes forward. Damn! She pulls me into the house and hugs me, and all the tension washes down my arms. What are you doing here?

I got your letter, I explain, and hope it is enough. Smiling against her smile, feeling the glow that being in her presence always produces.

My letter? Her brows knit and then relax. Of course, my letter. Well, come in. Come in, meet everybody. Damn, you look good. She rubs her hand over my flattening stomach, and I fold away from her fingers. You good? she asks, her voice dropping, low and personal.

I am caught in the tractor beam of her, the way I always was back at Life House, held captive by the luminous nature of her attention. I nod, not able to speak, knowing that this question is about the baby. We step across the living room, and she points to and names the women I saw outside earlier. Darla, who is Cici’ s cousin, Connie, who answered the door, and Sybil, who is sitting next to Darla, looking tear stained and frazzled. Sybil barely glances at me, but Connie puts up a hand to shake mine and Darla nods, pulling the cloth away from her face, repositioning the frozen peas within it and replacing it over the swelling, red mound on her cheekbone, causing her eye to narrow and squint.

We knew each other back in Missouri, she explains, and I see Darla’s expression shift from unsure to knowing, and I understand that at least one of these women knows what Cici left behind.

I feel awkward as I sit down next to Cici, and realize that maybe I should have waited until the drama of today had melted down and been cooled before coming inside, but the conversation picks back up, as if there is no stranger in their midst, and I let their voices wash over me, feeling not strange, feeling at peace again among women after my lengthy drive. Sometime later, when the conversation has worn thin, I hear my name from far away. Come on, Alison. Wake up. I jerk up from my slump, realizing the other girls are gone and it is Cici leaning down over me. It’s okay, you’re okay.

She goes out to my car with me, and we bring in my backpack and the pillowcase stuffed with all of my clothes.

When I wrote you the letter, I didn’t know Sybil was going to move in, but she and Eddie broke up and she needed a place. I hear the undercurrent in her tone.

I don’t have to stay. I just wanted to see you, you know?There is need in my voice and clear my throat. I needed a change of scenery, I clarify, sounding more solid and independent. We pass through the living room, her a step ahead.

***

The man was Eddie, and He’s Sybil’s piece of shit, Cici says in explanation. We are upstairs in her room, and it feels strange and familiar at the same time. No longer with bellies before us, we are both leaner than the last time we saw each other. The past two days of driving and living out of pretzel bags has gone a long way toward removing the extra chub from my pregnancy.

I nod, about the piece of shit, and walk around the small ten-by-ten space that is Cici’s room.

So, I didn’t know if you were coming, you know, she says, and I feel it, that thing that has felt odd. Well, Darla let Sybil move in, so she took your room.

I wrote you, told you I was coming. Stupid. Who drives twenty-four-hundred miles on the whisper of a room in a house?

I know, but Sybil was in a bad place. I mean, you saw Eddie. He is seriously unstable, man. But, hey, we’ll work it out. It’s not like we haven’t shared a room before, right? Cici says, her voice sounding hopeful, nonchalant. It will be like old times.

I think I shouldn’t have come. I turn and look at her, letting all the weariness hang across my face.

Don’t say that. She squeezes my hand. I’ve missed you, she says, letting her lip pucker out. You’ll love California. It will be okay. Her eyes hold mine, her forehead a breath away. I see how sorry she is that I’m disappointed, that she let me down. Why don’t you take a shower and get some sleep, and we’ll talk about it in the morning?

I nod because I am tired. It will be okay. We’ll work it out in the morning. It’s not like I don’t have people now; I can go back to Illinois. I can go back to my grandparents or even the McGills’ place. She shows me to the bathroom, and I dig in the pillowcase for shorts and a t-shirt to sleep in, and then I let the water wash away the road.

She is waiting for me when I come out, my hair wrapped in the towel she gave me, my skin scrubbed clean. You can sleep here tonight, and tomorrow we’ll go get you a bed. It’ll be great. She is trying to make it okay, and I let it be.

***

The next morning rises through the window, and the scent of frying bacon tickles my nose. I am confused for a second, when my eyes first come open, trying to understand where I am, how I got here. I have sweated in the night, and my skin feels tacky. I take a quick shower and dress before I go down the stairs and into the living room. I notice everything I didn’t notice last night. There are four bedrooms opening out from the corridor at the top of the steps and a row of cabinets at the railing, painted white. The doors to the rooms are all open, and I see unmade beds and clothes but no sign of people. I hear voices from the kitchen and steel myself to meet everybody again.

Cici is at the stove, and the girl who had the cloth over her cheek yesterday, Cici’s cousin Darla, is setting plates on the table. Hey, she says and smiles, her cheek a mottled purple, a deep bruise swelling along the bone of her eye socket.

Hey. I nod. That smells great.

She nods, wiping her hands down the front of her jeans. She puts a hand out to me, and I give her mine, which feels crazy. We didn’t really meet last night, ya know? It was a little nuts when you got here. Sorry about your room, but Sybil’s only gonna be here a couple of weeks, so just hang till then and the room is yours.

Yeah, I was just in a bind, but my ex will be out of my condo at the first of the month, Sybil says, putting a hand on my shoulder as she passes into the kitchen. Eggs sizzle in the pan that Cici has just taken the bacon out of, and Sybil takes one of the greasy slices, passing it from one hand to the other before taking it in her mouth. Asshole, she says with a smile.

So we can get a cot or something until then, or you can take the couch. You know?

Are you sure? I don’t want to make you all crowded. Relief washes down over my shoulders when I catch Cici’s smile.

The more the merrier, Darla smiles, easygoing, and I see the family line that passes through the two of them. They both have the magnetism, that ability to make everybody else feel important or special. Just no men. You can’t bring your men here. She points to her battered face. It’s best if they don’t know where you are.

Yeah, that was some excitement last night, I say, cautious, but needing to know if that sort of thing happened a lot.

Yeah. You know, Darla says, Eddie’s okay. He just doesn’t hold his liquor, ya know?

He your boyfriend?

She laughs. No. He’s my brother.

He’s my husband... well, my ex, Sybil says, opening the fridge and drawing out a carton of orange juice.

Oh. That’s complex, I say, trying to work out the dynamics—why Darla is the one with the bruised face and not Sybil. Did she step in the way of the two? Is she the kind of woman who will step in front of a friend to protect that friend from danger? Did she just not think he would hit a sister like he would hit a wife?

He got served yesterday. He was mad, Sybil says, shrugging her shoulders, like it’s no big deal, like him being mad justifies his violence.

He had a gun, I say, because shots were fired and that seems like a big deal to me.

Yeah, but he’s a bad shot. Sybil shrugs and glances at Darla, and I see her taking in the bruise. There is something akin to guilt in her eyes.

Cici brings a steaming bowl of scrambled eggs, cooked with onions and peppers, and smiles her most infectious smile. Let’s eat. We sit around the table, and the conversation rolls around me, touching me with questions every now and again, but mostly just moving on, letting me fold into the pattern of the morning as best I can. They talk about what they have going on for the day; Sybil and Darla will be getting Eddie out of jail.

Connie has come in, her face red and wet from a morning run. Her hair is tied up in a ponytail, and her t-shirt has dark waves where she has perspired. She is still blowing hard, but looks happy and comfortable with her out-of-breath state. She has heard the last part of the conversation and says, I work at ten.

How far did you go today? Darla asks.

Thirteen, she says, taking a plate and adding eggs and bacon to it. She fills a glass from the tap before coming to stand over the table, holding her plate at chest height.

Connie’s training for a marathon, Cici says to me.

Wow. How far is that? I ask, because running isn’t something I’ve ever thought of doing. When I used to ride my bike from the trailer to town, that was about seven miles, and I felt like that was an accomplishment.

A marathon? It’s 26.2, so I’m about halfway there, Connie says between bites, and I realize that the underside of her hair is dyed purple.

Wow. I’m impressed. How long does it take to run almost thirteen miles?

I’m not fast, but under two hours, which is okay. I’m not really worried about speed right now, just trying to build my distance.

That’s cool, I say, nodding.

You run? Connie asks.

No. I used to ride a bike about thirteen miles a day though.. It feels like an embellishment, although it is true enough, but nobody seems to think anything of it.

You should run with me some time, Connie says, swiping a piece of toast over her plate.

It sounds like an invitation, and I nod and say that I will.

Connie is a nurse, Cici says. She cares about all the health stuff.

Really? That’s what I want to be, I say. I just got my CNA, feeling proud because I did something. I’ve set a goal and taken the first step to getting there. Where do you work?

Over at Palomar, The word means nothing to me, and she must see it, because she goes on, It’s the hospital here in Poway.

Do you think they’d be hiring? I mean, if I’m staying, I need a job.

Couldn’t hurt to apply. As she passes by the table, she grabs another piece of bacon. If you want to follow me over, you can.

That would be great, I say, feeling a small click as another piece of my puzzle falls into place.

All right. I’m out, Connie says. She goes through the living room and takes the steps two at a time.

3

Connie does more than just let me follow her over to the hospital. She walks me in and takes me straight to the HR department. I don’t know if she can tell that the fear of actually going and applying for this job is almost overwhelming, but Connie is very encouraging and calming in her quiet way. I feel like such an imposter, and I’m afraid it will show on me, the dingy stains from the well water in Bushton. Will they see what I come from? Will they know I won’t be a good employee, that I will end up like my mother, making her mistakes, living like some reincarnation of her bad decisions?

Connie introduces me as her roommate, and I feel her calm, like an arm around my shoulder, and let her claim me. Bushton is too far away to show on me here. The realization feels like a weight lifting, and I feel my back straightening. I let my history slip off and away, not mine any longer. I can make a different life. Even if I told people where I come from, they wouldn’t know what it means.

I fill out the application, with a clipboard on my lap, using my best handwriting so they can read every letter, hoping that my answers won’t show my true colors. I leave the application with the charge nurse, with the phone number to the apartment, or condo, as the girls call it. I don’t know what the difference between an apartment and a condo is, but they are pretty insistent that theirs is a condo.

The world is shining and beautiful when I come out into the day. The sky is aquamarine, so clear and bright. Not a single cloud crosses that vast space, and I catch myself skipping through the parking lot and out to Little Red. Palm trees line Ted Williams Parkway, and I merge into the traffic. The old me would have been too intimidated, too insecure, to even walk into the hospital and ask for an application, but it all happened so fast there was no time. There is no knot in the pit of my stomach; there is no sense of impending doom.

I am free. I can be anybody I want to be. I can work in a hospital, I can train for a marathon, I can do anything, and there is nobody to tell me I can’t. I sing along with the radio, loud and clear and not caring at all that somebody may hear me through my open windows. Nobody knows anything about me here. Nobody except Cici, and she isn’t going to tell about where we’ve been. We will only talk about where we are going, just like we did at Life House. I am a chameleon, and I can change my colors. I turn left onto Pomerado Parkway and let the traffic move me from stop light to stop light feeling the shackles of my life coming off of my wrists, sliding down along the edges of my fingers, and floating out through open window. I am heady with the power of it when I park in the Annabelle parking lot. I stand in the middle of the lot, feeling the sun on my face, feeling the air whispering along my neck, and I let myself imagine my life created here.

There are mountains, rising up toward the clear skies. I know the mountains are to the east, because I drove through them to get back into the valleys of Southern California. I want to keep going! The thought sings through my blood when I didn’t even know I was seeking an answer. I have come all these miles, over two thousand miles from our trailer in Bushton and I think I have to go to the edge of the country to know that I don’t have to run any farther. That I have not gone far enough.

California moves faster than the Midwest, but I’m not going to let that stop me. I can go as fast as they can, and there is nobody to tell me I can’t. I recognize the beginning of a motto, a theme. Nobody to tell me I can’t. When I catch a sign in the distance that reads Del Mar, relief washes over me. I know Cici mentioned Del Mar in her second letter, when she talked about going to the beach and the movies with a man she had met and was thinking about dating.

The interstate dumps out, and I head south. I reach the Coast Highway, and my breath stops in my throat in a little shudder-gasp as the wide expanse of blue ocean melds into blue sky. I park in the first space I see because I want only to get to the sea, to feel that water, to smell it. I do