The Alice Network

by Kate Quinn

Hope was such a painful thing, far more painful than rage.

The kind of home where a child learned quickly to slide unseen around the edges of rooms, to vanish like a shadow in a black night at the first rumble on the domestic horizon. To listen to everything, weigh everything, all the while remaining unnoticed.

No one lets girls do anything at all. Not spend our own money, sell our own things, or plan our own lives.

Boys got to do whatever they wanted, and girls got to sit around looking pretty.

“That doesn’t mean you were boring, ma p’tite. Just bored. Most women are bored, because being female is boring. We only get married because it’s something to do, and then we have children and find out babies are the only thing more boring than other women.”

It was the face of someone who did care, and was cared for in return.