Bridge of Sighs

of those I’ve had as an adult, though this same effect was probably present when I was a boy, had I known what to look for. Back then my mother could predict an upcoming event when she noticed a remoteness, some part of me that couldn’t be engaged, making me seem confused or conflicted. But neither one of us could ever be sure. Sometimes my abstraction was simply worry about a big math test or something I’d overheard or possibly misinterpreted in conversation between my parents as it came filtering up into my bedroom late at night through the heat register. A temporary worry, in other words, of the sort that would expire of its own volition, predictive of nothing and indicative only of the human condition.
    Which may well be the case now. In writing my story I’ve brought myself back to that period when my spells were more frequent, and this may explain the aura I’ve felt of late, especially when I quit writing and return to my real, present life. At such times I can’t help but wonder whether a spell is imminent, or if my slight disorientation is nothing more than the past colliding with the present, as they will when people my age attempt to see the figure in the carpet of their lives, which we can’t help but do. The human condition, as I say, as opposed to the peculiar condition of Lucy Lynch. In confiding my fears about Italy, I guess I’m asking my mother if she’s observed any of the old symptoms, if she still has the knack of knowing.
    “I just don’t want to ruin things for Sarah,” I say. “You know how I am afterward. If I had a spell over there, she’d have to do everything herself. I just keep hoping we’ll hear from Bobby before we go. That way if something happens…”
    This is exactly the wrong thing to say, of course, since it makes me seem childlike, even more in need of reassurance. Saying his name out loud to my mother has the unintended effect of allowing the needy boy I was to creep back into my voice, an echo across the decades. All over again I’m telling her
I just wish
Bobby’d call with his new phone number like he promised, or
I just wish
he hadn’t been sent off to school downstate, or
I just hope
he’ll call during the Christmas break. And my poor mother, beyond exasperation, telling me for the umpteenth time that I have to stop depending on him, that my just wishing and just hoping are pointless, since I don’t even know for sure that he’ll be coming home for Christmas, or that his father will allow him to call even if he wants to. And finally, that if I don’t stop worrying these same things over and over in my head, I’ll end up having a spell.
    So the sad look she gives me when I say I wish for my wife’s sake that we’d hear from Bobby Marconi—who doesn’t even exist anymore, at least not by that name—is the one I knew I’d get, the one that says I’m deluding myself, now as always. But kind, as well, as she sometimes was with my father when she took a break from trying to change him and accepted both who he was and even the fact that she loved him. She leaves her hand on top of mine, and it
is
a comfort, I must admit, though shameful. Is it a comfort to her as well? To be able to let go, however temporarily, of whatever unease has been between us, mother and son, for so long?
    “Oh, Lou,” she says, squeezing my hand so hard that it has to hurt her gnarled, arthritic fingers, “why must you be so…”
    I can’t say, any more than I can explain why I said that about Bobby writing back before we leave. Because I do know that’s not going to happen.
             
     
    I PARKED in the lot behind the movie theater, planning to fetch the car after lunch and save my mother the walk, but now she says she’d prefer the exercise, so we cross the street and walk slowly and silently up the alley between the Bijou and the now-abandoned Newberry’s. For me this alley is one of the most haunted places in Thomaston. Here, though it’s been nearly forty years since the last yellow kernel was popped, I can still smell the dime-store popcorn and Karen Cirillo’s cheap perfume. Here, too, is the rusty fire escape leading up to the exit that was always chained shut for Saturday matinees to prevent West End kids who’d paid from sneaking up into the condemned balcony and letting their friends in for free. From the second step of this fire escape I witnessed one of the most shocking events of my youth, and I suppose I’ll have to commit it to paper