Alice is an anchor character in this book. She is the only per-son who recognizes and appreciates Charlie’s true human worth before the surgery. She recommends him for the surgery out of respect for his achievements and a desire to help him achieve his goals. She is patient with Charlie and helps him work through his emotional conflicts, even as she recognizes that she no longer can reach him intellectually and that his intellect has made it too difficult for her to be around him. She is always honest with Charlie and with herself. When she and Charlie separate, it’s because he fails to meet her emotional needs, and she no longer can meet his intellectual needs. Charlie must discover his emotions before they can be together.

Alice grows to truly love Charlie, and she gives of herself to him completely, despite his intellectual regression. In the true sense of lovers and partners, she completes his development into an emotional/intellectual whole even as that fragile union is heading toward its downward slide. Alice keeps Charlie connected. It can be argued that without Alice, Charlie would never have achieved full integration. Although Charlie describes her as a woman of two minds, Alice is the only character who knows and loves both the old and the new Charlie.