The Evolution of Alice by David Alexander Robertson Read Free Book Online

times.”
    “Oh, God. It’s so
insanely
difficult to prove the smallest point with you, even when you
know
I’m right.”
    “Hon, you know luncheon meat is good for like, 93 seconds after you buy it, right? You know how my stomach’s been.”
    “Yes, I know how your stomach’s been, and I know, also, the specialist said he thought your stomach was fine aside from needing Tums once in a while.”
    “Zantac, actually.”
    “Ed,
fuck.
Ever since Jeff died. No. Ever since Jeff got sick, this has been a
thing.
You are like a damn illness chameleon. Somebody’s got a brain tumour and you’ve all of a sudden got a massive headache. You are an
illness chameleon.
You have to be cognizant of …”
    And then, as though he was owed some cosmic favour, the cell service cut out again, and he was reintroduced to his music playlist. The red needle slowly began to creep back up, but not a shade past 110 km/h. Sometimes, Edward thought, he didn’t want to talk to Nicole at all. For a moment, he wished the highway went on forever and he could just drive and drive farther and farther out so there’d never be reception. But this thought was gone as quickly as it arrived. He tried to imagine what it would be like to talk to Nicole for the last time, and hoped it wasn’t the talk he’d just had with her, because he was, admittedly, now a little worried about going off the road just like she had mentioned. What would he say to her? What profound things would they discuss? How would they say goodbye?
    It made Edward think about the last time he’d talked to Jeff. It was near autumn, and he and Nicole had just sat down for supper when the phone rang.
    “How are you doing?” Edward had said, and cringed at the words. But what do you say to somebody who is dying?
    “I’m okay,” Jeff said in a shaky, weak voice that sounded nothing like the Jeff Edward knew.
    “I’m sorry about what’s happened,” Edward said, and noticed Nicky point at herself, so he added, “Nicky is too. What a thing, you know.”
    “Thanks,” Jeff said, his voice nearly a whisper, “but I’m okay, really. I’m at peace with it.”
    Edward wanted to ask how the hell he could have been at peace with it, seeing as how every health care practitioner he’d seen—naturopaths, homeopaths, gastroenterologists, and so on—had clearly screwed up. Edward never did understand how they all could’ve missed a tumour the size of a baseball growing in Jeff’s stomach.
    “Well, you’re a better man than I am,” Edward said.
    “No, I’m not. I just have something you don’t.”
    “Even now, you’re trying to get me to believe in God,” Edward laughed. “Come on. I mean,
come on
.”
    Edward thought back on how he and Jeff had become close in the first place, because they weren’t at first, he being Nicole’s uncle, and a bit of an odd bird, wearing train conductor caps for no reason and doing other inexplicable things. Jeff had dragged Edward to a church men’s retreat one year, and, after Edward surprised himself by having a good time with Jeff, he’d agreed to go back subsequent years. He was certain that he came to know Jeff much better during the retreats but was far less certain he’d come to know God.
    “Everybody needs something to keep them safe and secure,” Jeff said. “What do you have to lose?”
    “Nothing, Jeff.”
    Nothing.
That’s what was out there with Jeff. Could God be bothered to be somewhere so damn boring? As Edward rounded a gentle curve, he glanced over at the Nikon camera, ensuring that it remained in place, and repeated the one task he had been given before setting out on his journey. He was supposed to take a lot of good pictures. Nicole and Grandma wanted to see how the trees were growing. Trees. They were saplings. But he supposed that he’d misspoken, even if it had been just to himself. There was nothing
and
a pair of saplings. That was far more accurate, and God probably still didn’t give a shit.
    Then his