We did it. We got Alice and while this post may not be the happiest one, it’s the ending we have. I am just thankful that Alice is with me and I am able to touch and feel and see her fully present for the first time since this started. She is not unwilling to share the ordeal but she has given me her side and asked me to continue to give details of the final day from both of our perspectives before we cease posting entirely. This whole mess has given her so much anxiety and pain, that she would rather not have to look at or see anything related to it. It’ll probably be awhile before she visits reddit again, even as a lurker, though she gives her sincere thanks to people who kept commenting and asking her to update. She said she kept making the posts without visiting previous ones due to the precious little time she had to post during her mother’s naps…see? I was right.
The police didn’t believe me, not at first. When I was home, biting my nails to bits, they made a home visit to see Alice. They told me later that they did not tell Brenda any of their suspicions, and just said that it was standard protocol to check in on cases like Alice’s, to make sure she was being “managed”. Either Brenda bought it or she was smart enough not to argue with police officers.
What follows is a combination of my experience, the officers’ and Alice’s and hopefully our scope can give a good enough idea of what happened.
When they got there, the place was immaculate. Nothing was outwardly wrong in the main house, it was pristine and well-kept. Brenda offered them coffee and tried to steer them away from the back windows, probably in an attempt to keep them from seeing the guest house, though the guest house is what was listed on the discharge papers I also provided to the police. Ya girl’s thought of everything.
They politely declined and before searching the guest house, in an effort to make Brenda relax a bit, they asked to search the rest of the house. They didn’t find anything…at first. They checked her bedroom, guest rooms, craft room, everything. They looked in cupboards and drawers and when Brenda asked why all of this was necessary, they assured her that since Alice had been suspected of having mental health problems in the past, they wanted to ensure there was nothing there that could harm her.
At this point in their story, I (Sandra) am baffled as to why they wouldn’t be like, “Oh, a guest house, let’s go check that where the person we received the calls about is” but who am I to tell police how to do their job.
It is finally when they approach the attic that they said Brenda began to get nervous. They started to reach up for the handle to make the stairs accessible and she began pulling on their arms, babbling about how it is such a mess, please don’t embarrass an old woman like this. They didn’t listen and it’s here that the officers are maybe starting to think that I am not so crazy and not telling tall tales to get a hated mother-in-law in trouble.
Bottles lined the walls, jugs full of clear liquid. And in the center of the room, a full bartop. A simple little counter that anywhere else would be a welcome gathering point for friends and family, but here? After what I told them and after what I made them read in Alice’s reddit posts? Here it was a fucked-up sight.
When I asked her where she goes at night, I was wrong. She was always in the guest house at night, being supplemented with tidbits from the nurse I saw. Closing shift in her mind was having to begin to be alone with her thoughts before she was put to sleep.
During the day, though, she was here. When I would leave, she was brought up here. Before and after Brenda’s nap, they were up here, basically shoving shit into my wife’s throat. She was never meant to get better or be set free.
When I asked her if any part of her knew this bar and the one in her head in the guest house were different, she said yes, she believes so on some level. Sometimes there would be noises, haunting things that made her think that her bar was falling apart. Some times of day she could feel more clearly and start to remember pieces about me but then without fail, a “customer” would come in and she was sucked back into their woes.
Brenda did not go without a fight. This is going to be the hard part and the part that Alice most does not want any part of remembering.
When the officers tried to restrain her, she made a break for it. She ran into the kitchen like a cornered animal and began screaming nonsense about me and Alice. I was an abuser. I was mistreating Alice and that’s why Alice needed to be saved. I had kidnapped her and was holding her hostage. Alice would never leave her mother willingly, so I must have done something to hurt her. Brenda did what she had to do to keep her safe.
During this time, Alice says she could hear things coming from outside. She was beginning to get more lucid because it had been a few hours since her last “drink”. She had finished off what she had and normally “Bruce” would be in by now with more. She could hear yelling and screaming and for the first time in weeks, she had the thought to open the door. She stared down the door that had been her only obstacle, even if she did not see it as one, and finally pulled it open. She passed through it and though the outside was terrifying and unknown, my brave beautiful wife crossed the threshold from her bar, to the outside and then into the thick of it.
The scene is going to haunt her forever. Her mother was waving a knife, brandishing it between the officers and then back to her own throat before she set her eyes on Alice. Brenda’s eyes gleamed and she leapt for Alice who goes to meet her halfway, because that’s her mother. That’s her mommy who would never hurt her.
She hurts her. She holds Alice tightly to her body and Alice does not struggle because she is still unsure of what is happening here to make her mother act this way. Brenda is still screaming, calling me names and telling everyone in the room that she will never let Alice go. Alice’s fear is now growing, crushing her down and she is beginning to worry that between the outside and this, she will never not be afraid.
When the officers bravely go forward to wrench Alice free, the knife moves and cuts Alice’s throat. I thank whatever powers that be with my whole heart that the knife did not cut too deeply. Alice will recover, at least physically.
Blood is spilled and Alice is dropped on the floor to grasp at her neck, confused as to what just happened. She is in so much pain and her mind is working overtime in what she thinks are her final moments because why would her mother hurt her? She then remembers other times her mother has hurt her and starts to understand before losing consciousness.
I am called to the hospital to see her and when I tell you that I have never driven faster in my life, I am not kidding. I sped there, a mix of fear and hopelessness because the person on the phone did not sound happy.
Seeing Alice lying there, as fragile and pale as a porcelain doll, filled me with despair. I collapsed into the chair next to her, sobbing and wailing at the doctors, imploring them to assure me that she was okay. They confirmed that she would be and could come home. Not now, but soon. To our home, the one that I have been haunting like a ghost for however long.
We have a long road ahead of us and I am unsure what consequences there will be for her mother or for the man dressed as a nurse or any number of the other people who may have been involved but I do know three things: One, Alice is alive and she will make it. Two, I will never let anyone make her doubt her own mind again. And three…
Alice finally remembers my face.