What Alice Forgot

“Someone else was floating in the water right next to her. Someone she liked a lot, who made her laugh.”

As Alice slowly regains consciousness on the floor of the gym after her head injury, she remembers floating with Gina in the Hawkesbury river on their houseboat vacation. This being Alice’s first thought illustrates how ever-present Gina was in Alice’s thoughts after Gina’s traumatic death. Alice clearly misses Gina and their time together; her affection for Gina and their long history of shared memories places Gina in Alice’s awareness as someone special to her.

“Where was Nick? Had he already got up? Maybe he was making her a cup of tea.”

Alice’s confidence that Nick is nearby illustrates the couple’s closeness and happiness at the beginning of their relationship. Her guess that he is making her a cup of tea illustrates Nick’s loving and caring manner towards Alice . Nick is characterized as a caring and sweet husband, which elucidates Alice’s shock when she discovers that they are separated and when Nick swears angrily at her on the phone.

“I just got an invitation to her fortieth birthday.”

Jane tells the paramedic that Alice is in fact 39, not 29. The invitation to Alice’s 40th birthday party, which Alice doesn’t remember issuing, illustrates that it is in fact 2008, not 1998. This sets up the premise of the story, in which Alice struggles to understand the intervening years and to reconcile her old and new selves.