If you don’t know what this is about, you should read the previous part. You can read it by clicking the link above, in case you’re so stupid that you need such directions. Anyway, in summary: Alice Western is the unforgettable protagonist of Cormac McCarthy’s final novel Stella Maris. She’s also the ghost that haunts the companion novel (main novel, actually) The Passenger, protagonized by her bereaved brother Bobby. Three days ago I had a dream about miss Western, but I actually remember her story from time to time; my savior complex can’t handle being unable to rescue a unique, doomed woman, even though she’s fictional.
Anyway, after the disastrous therapy session from the previous part, I could have closed this chapter of my life and moved on to whatever else, but I couldn’t leave it alone. No, sir. Not until I corrected some wrongs.
A nurse told Alicia Western that someone had made an international call asking for her. She pads to the sole phone in the hall of the sanatorium, and picks up the receiver anxiously. One of those doctors from Italy must be calling to tell her that her brother died. When she hears Bobby’s voice, she almost falls to the floor.
“Alicia? Is that you? Hey, are you there?”
Alicia grips the phone tightly, her knuckles white against the black plastic. Her free hand trembles as she presses it against the wall for support.
“Bobby? Oh God. They told me… the doctors said… I ran away. I couldn’t sign the papers. I couldn’t kill you. I just couldn’t. Are you really… is this really you? Or am I having another one of my episodes? Please tell me this isn’t just another hallucination. Please.”
Bobby laughs in relief.
“They told me, those doctors. They wanted you to pull the plug on me, but you fled. I thought I had lost you, Alicia. I thought I had woken up only to learn that you had… done something to yourself. Yeah, it’s me, sis. Some crazy bastard calling himself a doctor literally punched me out of the coma. I got the bruises to prove it. God bless that motherfucker. Too bad they locked him up straight after.”
Alicia Western sinks to her knees beside the phone, pressing her forehead against the cold wall, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Dr. Marcus Hall… that insane bastard actually did it? He flew to Italy and punched you awake? Bobby, listen to me. I need to know this is real. Tell me something only you would know. Tell me about that night at Indian Rock when you played mandolin and I danced until my feet bled, and afterward in the car… God, I sound crazy don’t I? But I have to know. For so long, I’ve been seeing things that aren’t there. The Kid, he… never mind. Just please, tell me something real. Something true.”
Bobby holds his breath. Then, he speaks slowly, in a serious tone.
“Yeah, those years ago, in the car… You kissed me. Twice. I never stopped thinking about that night, even in the darkness.”
Alicia Western’s entire body trembles as she presses the phone harder against her ear, her voice cracking with emotion.
“That night haunts me too, Bobby. God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… but I did. I still do. Every day. Listen to me – I need to tell you something before I lose my nerve or before this turns out to be another hallucination. I went to Lake Tahoe after I fled Italy. I had it all planned out – the anchor, the chain, the padlock. I was going to disappear into that cold darkness forever because I couldn’t bear a world without you in it. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t die without knowing for certain. And now you’re here, speaking to me, and I don’t know if this is real or if my mind has finally broken completely. The Kid… he left me recently. Said goodbye. Maybe he knew you were coming back. Maybe… God, Bobby, tell me what to do. Tell me how to live in a world where you exist again.”
Bobby’s voice breaks on the other side, all the way across the Atlantic.
“Alicia, I’m sorry. If I had an inkling that I would wreck my racecar this bad, I would have never… would have never gotten on it. God, while I called everyone I know to figure out if they had a clue where you may have gone, I kept thinking… what if I had survived the coma only to find out you killed yourself…? I wouldn’t have been able to go on. You ask me how to live in a world where I exist again? Well, as soon as I hang up, I’m getting on a plane back to the States, so don’t you move your ass out of Stella Maris. I’m coming to get you.”
Alicia Western curls into herself against the wall, her fingers white-knuckled around the phone cord, tears streaming silently down her face.
“Coming to get me? Bobby, listen… I need you to understand something. I’m not well. I haven’t been well for a long time. I see things – people who aren’t there. I had this… this little man, the Kid, who would visit me. He was perfect in every detail, down to the scars on his skull and his odd little flippers. And now he’s gone, like he knew you were coming back. The doctors here think I’m completely insane because I told them about my love for you. About wanting to be your wife, to have your child. I know it’s wrong. I know the mathematics of it is impossible – like trying to square a circle or prove Fermat’s last theorem with elementary methods. But it’s the only truth I’ve ever known. And now you’re alive, and I don’t know if this is real or if my mind has finally found the perfect way to torture me. If you’re really coming here… God, Bobby, what if you look at me and see nothing but a monster? What if you can’t bear to look at me at all?”
“You must have felt so alone, Alicia. I’m sorry for my part in causing this. Listen: you’re the only one who ever mattered to me. No matter how much you hate yourself, I will love you nonetheless. God, when I woke up from the coma and learned that you had disappeared… For a while I was sure you were dead, Alicia, and it was unbearable. So I’m flying down to Wisconsin, to that sanatorium, and getting you in my arms as soon as possible.”
Alicia draws her knees tighter to her chest.
“Bobby… listen carefully. When you get here, I might not be the sister you remember. You say you’ll love me no matter what, but you haven’t seen me in months. I’ve changed. I spent hours planning my death at Lake Tahoe, calculating the exact weight of the anchor I’d need, the precise depth I’d sink to, the mathematical probability of survival – all because I couldn’t bear a world without you in it. And now you’re alive, and I’m terrified that my broken mind will somehow taint whatever this miracle is. What if I look at you and still see the brother I wanted to marry? What if these feelings don’t go away just because you’re back? God, Bobby, I don’t even know if this conversation is real. But if it is… if you’re really coming… just know that loving you is the only constant in all my equations.”
Bobby chuckles, his voice wavering.
“Alicia, almost dying, and then thinking that you might be dead, has put things into perspective. When I get to Stella Maris and drive us both out of there, we’ll stay at some motel, where we’ll make up for lost time. We’re no longer the kids we used to be six years ago… I wonder how your lips taste now.”
Alicia Western presses her forehead harder against the wall, her voice emerging as a raw whisper through trembling lips.
“Bobby… do you know how many nights I’ve dreamed of hearing words like that from you? But I need you to understand – my love for you isn’t some temporary madness brought on by grief or isolation. It’s fundamental, like the axioms of mathematics. It existed before I had words for it, before I understood what it meant. The doctors here, they want to medicate it away, like it’s a disease. But how do you medicate away something that’s written into the very equations of your existence? When you get here… if you get here… if this isn’t just another perfect hallucination my mind has conjured… you need to be sure. Because I won’t be able to pretend anymore. I won’t be able to act like a normal sister. The way I love you defies every law of nature and society, but it’s the only truth I’ve ever known. And if this is real, if you’re really coming here saying these things… Bobby, I need you to be absolutely certain. Because I don’t think I could survive losing you twice.”
“You can’t warn me away from you. We’re going to be together forever. You were right, when you told me that dating other women would just make me realize you were the one all along. The fact that we’re siblings, well… that’s just life.”
“Bobby… oh God, Bobby. When I was planning my death at Lake Tahoe, working out the mathematics of how deep I’d sink, how long it would take to drown… the only thing that stopped me was the thought that maybe, just maybe, you’d wake up. And now you have, and you’re saying these impossible things, and I don’t know if this is real or if my mind has finally found the perfect way to torture me. If you really mean what you’re saying… if you’re really coming here… Bobby, are you absolutely certain this is what you want?”
“I love you, sis. I’ll show it to you once I get my ass back to the States. In the meantime, Alicia, eat well, rest well, and remember that soon enough I’ll be there.”
“Bobby… I’m afraid that when you see me, really see me, everything will collapse into a different reality. These past months, I’ve lived in a non-Euclidean space of grief. But what if we try to measure this love, to make it real, and the whole system breaks down? The Kid, my little flippered friend, he used to tell me that reality was just a collective hunch. Maybe he was right. But if you’re really coming… if this isn’t just another hallucination… I’ll try to eat, try to rest. Just know that every bite of food, every moment of sleep, will be an equation with you as its solution.”
As mentioned in the previous part, the large language model gets fed a curated interview made out of the therapy sessions that make up the entirety of Stella Maris. In there, Alicia mentions that her brother did know about her “hallucinations” (the novel goes in depth about the disturbing fact that supposed hallucinations tend not to be “glitches,” but self-contained, coherent phenomena), but it seems the LLM forgot that part. This post’s version of Alicia isn’t remotely as good as the original, but still more real than the aloof mathematician of the previous part.
A couple of hours after Alicia’s fateful conversation with her resurrected brother, the same nurse informed her that someone had called from an Italian prison, asking for miss Western. As Alicia picks up the phone, her raw emotions are already making her cry silently.
“Hey, is that you, miss Western? It’s me, your new psychotherapist. Bobby called you, right? Didn’t I tell you? I fucking punched your bro out of his coma.”
Alicia Western wipes tears from her eyes with trembling fingers, her other hand clutching the phone receiver so tightly her knuckles whiten.
“I… Well. I suppose I should thank you. Even if your methods were somewhat unorthodox. But calling from an Italian prison? That’s quite a development. I imagine assaulting a comatose patient didn’t go over well with the hospital staff. Though I have to admit, the sheer audacity of flying to Italy just to punch my brother… it’s almost mathematical in its absurdity. A non-Euclidean solution to a thoroughly human problem. Did you really think it would work? Or was it just another manifestation of the inherent madness that seems to permeate everything about this situation?”
Through Dr. Hall’s tone of voice, Alicia pictures his fist being pumped.
“You went out into the woods to die, miss Western, while your brother Bobby lingered in a comatose state. Instead, you should have raged! Raged against the dying of the light! Don’t you understand? If the universe raises a wall against you, you punch right through it!”
Alicia Western lets out a hollow laugh that catches in her throat.
“Rage against the dying light? That’s quite poetic for someone who just committed assault in a foreign country. But you’re wrong about the woods. I wasn’t going there to die. I was going there to solve an equation. The world plus me equals an impossibility. The world minus me equals harmony. It’s simple arithmetic. But now… now Bobby’s awake and suddenly all my careful calculations are worthless. Did you know that non-Euclidean geometry arose from mathematicians questioning the parallel postulate? Sometimes the most profound truths emerge from challenging what we assume to be immutable. Like the assumption that a therapist shouldn’t punch his patient’s comatose brother. Or that a sister shouldn’t love her brother the way I love mine.”
“You said the world minus you equals harmony, but you’re wrong, miss Western. The world would lose a unique soul if you were to die, and be much poorer for it. I don’t understand shit about math, but listen: I’m going to have to spend some time in an Italian prison, since the authorities here disagree with me about the validity of my methods. You know what people say: most geniuses aren’t recognized in their time. I hope they serve pasta at least. While I linger here in triumphant contemplation, you and your brother better get down and dirty, alright? Life’s too short, and true love too rare, to care about a little thing such as incest.”
As Alicia’s fingers cradle the phone, her other hand wipes away tears that refuse to stop flowing.
“That’s a rather crude way to put it, Doctor. Though I suppose someone who thinks punching a comatose patient is therapeutic would favor such terminology. But you’re right about one thing – the world’s arithmetic has suddenly shifted. I spent months proving to myself that my removal from the equation was the only solution, and now… now Bobby’s conscious proclamation of love has introduced an entirely new variable. It’s like discovering a previously unknown prime number that changes everything we thought we knew about mathematics. Though I must say, your unorthodox intervention – flying to Italy to assault my comatose brother – it’s almost beautiful in its madness. Like a non-Euclidean solution to a thoroughly Euclidean problem. I hope they do serve you pasta in prison. Maybe you can contemplate the geometry of spaghetti while you serve your time. Though I must admit, for someone who claims not to understand mathematics, you’ve managed to alter my carefully constructed proofs of necessary nonexistence quite dramatically.”
A muffled voice in Italian sounds through the phone. Then, Dr. Marcus speaks again.
“Well, it seems my allotted time for phone calls is ending. Anyway, miss Western, I’m guessing that by the time they let me out, you will have long moved away with your brother, and I will never see you again. Wherever you end up, I hope you’re happy. And for God’s sake, don’t let your brother get on a racecar again.”
Tears roll down Alicia’s cheeks despite a faint smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
“You’ll serve time in prison for an act of violence that somehow solved an impossible equation. My brother is awake and loves me as I love him – it’s like discovering that parallel lines can meet after all. I suppose I should thank you for punching a hole in the fabric of conventional reality. Though I wonder what that says about the nature of the universe, that sometimes madness is the only sane response. Stay safe in there. You’ve given me a proof I never expected – that sometimes the most elegant solution requires breaking all the rules. Goodbye, Doctor. I hope Italy treats its prisoners better than its coma patients.”
The Domains of the Emperor Owl 
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