Are you there, dad? It’s me, Alice

After Jessie Glenn’s 10-year-old niece tries to contact her recentlydeceased father by email, an unusual correspondence begins

IN December, I moved the contents of my 10-year-old niece’s bedroom from my brother’s house in Portland, Oregon, to mine some 800 metres away, where I tried to create an exact replica: same colour walls, pictures hung in the same spots and stuffed animals laid out exactly as they had been.

Alice was going to be staying with us part-time because her father — my brother, James — had, at 37, taken his own life.

Although James had at times quietly suffered from depression, he had seemed fine last fall; none of us saw this coming.

Ten months earlier, he and his wife, Trina, got divorced and they had been sharing custody of Alice equally. But Trina worked full-time, with long nursing shifts and after James died, there were three days a week unaccounted for.

I wanted Alice with me on those days. Desperately.

In my grief, I took other parts of James’ life into mine too. His clothes, for example. Often I wore his socks, always his coat, most times his shirts and sometimes his jeans, which hung on me.

And soon I began to inhabit his online life as well. Searching for answers, I hacked into his various accounts: his email, Facebook, Instagram, tropical fish forum, chat site for BMW technicians, Snapchat, bank accounts, garbage bills and mileage awards charts.

What I most wanted to find was the search history on his phone, thinking it might provide a clue but the phone locked me out after too many failed passcode attempts.

SOMBRE CHRISTMAS

The first call had come from my father on the morning of the winter solstice. Did I know where James was? That led to a series of calls and texts to relatives and friends that seemed to go on and on until he was discovered later that morning.

After leaving my brother’s house, my mother and I drove to Trina’s, where my niece, Alice, sat crying on the couch, her face white, body shaking. If I could just be my brother, I thought, I could pick her up and say, “Don’t be sad, Blueberry. I’m back. I’m right here.” And she would giggle and squirm into my lap, which is too small for a 10-year-old, but neither of us would care.

That evening, I took the log from my phone and wrote down a minute-byminute summary of when everything had happened, all of the calls and texts. On Christmas Eve, Alice texted me: “Did dad get me Christmas presents?”

“Yeah!” I replied. “A big pile!”

I could almost see her brain working to compartmentalise this new reality, as if slamming a door on something she wasn’t yet able to process.

James’ presents for Alice had been in his desk, unwrapped and without tags; I took them home with me. He and I have nearly identical (terrible) handwriting, so I could fill out the tags somewhat credibly on his behalf, being careful not to smear the labels with my tears.

I wrote: “To: Alice” “Love: from Dad!” And “To: Blueberry, I love you!! — Dad” And on behalf of their puppy: “Kisses from Scout!!”

On Christmas morning everyone came PLAYING PRETEND

Then one day a new message popped up: “Hi dad”

I stared for a while at Alice’s message, so plaintive and weightless. I wondered if I should reply. I asked a therapist friend, who said: “Don’t answer as her father unless you ask Alice and she agrees to it.”

It took me a few days to figure out how to ask Alice casually. And then I texted her: “I’m on your dad’s email. Can I write you from it?”

She replied: “Wait what? Oh ok” “I guess I want to pretend,” I explained. “Oh I get it. Ok that is fine”

Then I changed the subject and did not acknowledge after that moment that we had agreed on virtual resurrection.

The next day, I pulled up the little message she had sent — “Hi dad” — and replied, “Hi Alice!!! Love you!!!!”

I don’t know what Alice thinks of these exchanges, which continue to this day, though with less frequency. She knows we are pretending, of course, but who can say what goes on in her mind? She never says anything emotional. She just wants to chat with her father, to say she misses him and loves him. She wants to be able to ask questions and work through this in whatever way feels right. And I want the same things.

I keep the tab to my brother’s email open in my browser 24/7 and always try to respond within half an hour. Alice now sleeps well at my house, though she still sometimes ends up in bed with my husband and me.

You can’t put things back to the way they were but you can try to make the best of the way things are. You can replicate her room and answer her emails. You can pull her into your lap and say, “You’ll be O.K., Blueberry. We’re right here.”

And we will be.