Serena didn’t know what she felt, only that the emotion possessed her. It threw her into the car and drove her to the MRT station at top speed.
A part of her still doubted it. It held the crazy theory that the call was a prank or a scam. That voice vanished when she parked her car.
The girl sat by the bench with two bags her size on either side, as if they were shielding her. She called out to her, to triple-check this was real.
The girl answered. “Mom!” This was real.
They hugged for forever. It was just them again. Her dear Alicia is back home.
The nights she spent reading the chapter on ‘DNA’ to Alicia for bedtime came to mind. The girl found all the long words funny, especially the pronunciation.
Alicia’s laughter was contagious, and it infected her the most.
She inspected the girl like she inspected her car when it bumped into something, searching for a scratch whilst wishing there were none. But finding none only fuelled her paranoia that the scratch had somehow eluded her. The girl had no cuts, bruises, or wounds anywhere. She took it as a sign of her flawed vision, as opposed to a sign of the girl’s safety.
Something out there must’ve hurt her baby. But where? And how badly? She asked Alicia all the questions she could conceive of, but the girl reported no injuries.
Alicia, a girl of sixteen, had her face matured by puberty. But all Serena saw was her baby, a girl of one, with watermelon cheeks and gigantic eyes. She’ll never stop seeing Alicia that way.
They drove back home in silence. She had a million things to say, but couldn’t put it into words. The only words she put together were questions. She asked them all.
While Alicia reunited with her bedroom, she called everyone she knew with good news. Mr Lee was relieved, and expected Alicia to return to school in a few days’ time. Wei Xiang insisted on coming over for dinner. Kelly put the bakery out of hiatus. Gen rejoiced. Jacob offered to come over. Cheryl—As much as she hated talking to her, the woman was still her manager.
She prepared herself with a long sigh. “Cheryl, I found Alicia. Zack wasn’t there. I’ll come back to work in—”
A man answered, “Hi. Serena? This is Cheryl’s husband. Cheryl is at the police station.”
Contrary to her expectations, she didn’t smile at this.
But she did revel in it. “Oh, what for?”
“It’s private.”
“It’s okay. Thank you.” She hung up.
Wait, so who was the manager now? The company, for the first time in her life, made her day as opposed to ruining it: they offered her a promotion. More hours with more control, more responsibilities, and more pay.
She accepted the position, and the responsibility of informing the staff about Cheryl.
As Alicia ate her noodles with flapping hands and a bobbing head, she thought to ask further about Zack. If Cheryl was arrested, yet her husband answered the phone, it meant he was a fellow victim.
He wasn’t abusive.
She turned to Alicia with the words ready in her mouth, but stopped herself. The girl looked like a rocket ready to take off. She got back to eating and noticed the difference it made to keep the noodles boiling for longer.
Words are hard, and noodles are soft.
The perfect timing of Alicia’s reunion with Dr Ling’s advice was eerie. Yesterday afternoon, Dr Ling asked this, “What would you do if Alicia came back?”
She dismissed it at first, a habit he was more than eager to address, and only contemplated it once their session was over. The conclusion she came to was this:
Talk and listen.
If Alicia returned, it meant she got a fresh start. And she swore not to ruin it. Hence, when Alicia did, she talked about the real story and listened to her autism diagnosis.
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First, she listened to Alicia explain autism. Seeing her quote the DSM-V was an unexpected but welcome flashback to when Wei Xiang taught her what he learnt a week before his exams as revision.
Pieces of the puzzle fell into place as Alicia droned on. The hand flapping, her hatred towards the wet market and the MRT, the allergy to eye contact and basic manners, the lack of common sense; it wasn’t on purpose. Her face grew red.
“So, that’s because you’re… autistic?”
She nodded.
“Oh, okay. I kept thinking you were doing it on purpose to disobey me. I’m sorry.”
“I did not.”
Next, she listened to how Alicia discovered this. The story destroyed the image of Kat in her head, and replaced it with one more charitable; a trustworthy friend who had Alicia’s back. Still, it didn’t excuse the rudeness, unless that was caused by her autism?
“Sounds like she’s a good friend. Good… spend more time with her. Just don’t learn to speak like her.”
“Okay. I won’t.”
Alicia’s request for a diagnosis was reasonable, if priced reasonably.
“Let me talk about it with Dr Wang first, okay?”
“Okay.”
Last, she listened to Alicia rant about tacos. It sounded like she was reading its encyclopaedia to her for bedtime. She covered its history, variants across different cultures, and recipes galore. She also begged her to cook one, but Serena wished to first try one.
Dr Wang advocated for the diagnosis. Whatever the outcome was, it outweighed the latter option; letting the mystery linger. He gave the clinic his seal of approval. Though, the price…
He offered to cover half of it for Alicia’s sake.
She broke the news to the employees over lunch a day later, as if announcing a death. The part-timers did their best to resist cheering. Gen was utterly speechless, while Kelly noted that her hunch she never dared to bring up had been proven right.
The lunch table was quiet at first, taking a moment of silence for their friend, but then became livelier than ever before. Without being cut off by razor-sharp remarks, everyone spoke freely. It was as if a curse had been lifted.
Kelly’s ideas were all related to the bakery, and Gen the foodie were all ears. No one ignored those anymore. Thanks to Gen’s word-of-mouth marketing, the bakery simply picked up where it left off.
The part-timers, after learning her shared contempt for Cheryl, bonded with her over said gossip. They made countless jokes and insults over her dumb necklace, her dumb bragging, and her dumb ego. It seemed she had become their best friend. Despite this, she still enforced the rule of no phones during work.
When Dr Ling learnt this, he was so overjoyed he disregarded therapy for a moment to bathe it in. She preferred this over therapy. But after the news had sunk in, he switched back to therapist mode.
She assured him she would keep the promises she made in this room and strive towards being a better mother to Alicia. Not only that, she would also keep working on the bakery as it took off, and manage the pet store. First order of business; getting those stupid lights fixed.
“That’s a lot.” He commented.
She assured him she could juggle it all. She owed it to herself and Alicia to do so. To prove her point, she outlined her revised schedule for him: prepare Alicia for school, go to work, come home and cook dinner, have a talk with Alicia in her bedroom, complete chores, bake, and sleep. If she followed it to a T, she could score herself seven hours of sleep.
“But do you have to juggle it all alone? What about your doctor friend, or your boyfriend, or your colleagues, perhaps?”
She swatted the suggestion away. They had busy schedules too. It was unfair to burden them like that. She’d done more than enough of that for her lifetime.
“What makes you think it would be a burden on them to ask them for help?”
“Well…”
“If you’ve received more help in the past with taking care of Alicia or your daily affairs, would that have improved your relationship with Alicia?”
Where was he going with this? “I guess? Cause I’ll have more time with her?”
“Do you think that could’ve helped prevent Alicia from running away?”
Stunned again, she nodded.
“I don’t know… I just already owe them so much…”
“How so?”
“It’s like… they could’ve spent their time doing anything else, but they wasted it on helping me. You know?”
“What makes helping you a waste of time?”
Because she was a junkie; a lost cause. Anyone who offered help was beating a dead horse. But, another voice argued, maybe she wasn’t that anymore.
After the session, she made several calls. First, a futile plead to the company for lesser hours. Second, an idea to Kelly for hiring staff for more manpower. Third, to trouble Wei Xiang to let Alicia stay over a few days a week.
No one (except the company) rejected her. No one (except the company) found it a burden.
Another favour came to her the moment she hung up. She called him again—awkward—and asked, “Do you have any book or papers on autism with you?”
Yes, he had. He loaned a book to her.
After dinner, Alicia swiped the tupperware of cookies from the fridge and waited by the couch. Serena joined her after clearing some junk mail, and the two spent the night watching a movie.
The girl opened the container, grabbed a cookie, and took a bite. Crumbs fell all over her shirt. Serena wiped them off and offered the tupperware lid as a makeshift plate.
“How is it?”
Alicia set the cookie on said lid so both hands were free to flap. “I love it!”
Serena felt her chest melt like warm butter. “Ok. Good.” She ruffled her hair into a mess and took a cookie herself.
After the movie was over and the cookies were finished, Alicia went to bed. Serena went to bed too, but not to sleep. Rather, she made herself cosy with the air refresher, some pillows, and spent the night reading the book she loaned.
Or she would’ve, if the book wasn’t such a dry to read. She fell asleep after the first chapter.