Alice was sitting at her desk, but she wasn’t doing anything that I could see. Her laptop was closed, and the desktop monitor was off. She didn’t even have a notebook open, and usually whenever she was in the office she had one. “Al?” I asked hesitantly. She seemed to be fixated on a spot on the wall, and I didn’t want to startle her.

“I’m sorry I left like that,” she said quietly in response.

“It’s fine, I just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” I told her. She sighed, but she didn’t look away from the wall.

“I know I’m being stupid,” she said after a minute. “I shouldn’t be worrying about the bad stuff right now. We don’t even know anything yet, and I’m already thinking about how the hell I’m going to pick myself up when they tell us we’re unfit to take her. I don’t know if I can.”

I walked over to stand behind her chair and put my arms around her. “I don’t know if I can either, baby. But that hasn’t happened yet. I really don’t think it will. Helena said everything looks great…”

“Yeah, I know. But she’s our friend; if we fucked something up she’d probably keep it to herself just to be nice,” Alice said sourly.

“No she wouldn’t. She’d tell us what was wrong so we could fix it. She’s trying to help us, not sabotage us. Let’s just wait and see what happens, huh?” I pleaded. While I understood her anxiety, I was nervous enough about the entire thing. That probably sounds cruel, and I don’t intend it to. I just wasn’t sure that I was in the proper frame of mind to be able to worry about Alice’s sanity on top of my own.

It turned out not to matter in the least. We woke up early and got dressed in nice clothes, then made sure the house was in order. It was already spotless; we’d been cleaning all week. That was both good and bad. We didn’t have to do it, but it also meant we had nothing to do but sit and wait. Which we did, although it almost killed us outright.

At about one that afternoon, the doorbell rang. I’d been trying to persuade Alice to at least have a sandwich or something, but she wouldn’t hear of it and refused to have anything, even when I insisted that it might help her nerves a little bit. She was just too nervous to be able to do it, though. I understood, but made myself choke down half a vegetable sandwich anyway.