Bridge of Sighs

at her father. “Got what you be needin’, brother, whenever you be needin’ it,” the man said, seemingly to no one in particular. A group of people was coming out of the restaurant as they were going in, and Sarah’s first thought was that he’d been addressing one of them, but once inside, the longer she thought about it, the more certain she was that he’d been talking to her father, a conclusion reinforced by the fact that he’d taken no notice whatsoever of the man. Her father always went out of his way with Thomaston’s Negroes, starting up conversations whether the occasion warranted it or, to judge from their startled reactions, not. Yet that evening he’d ignored the skinny black man entirely, and they’d passed close enough for her to catch a whiff of the sickening sweet odor that clung to his clothes. Was it possible that such a man had something her father wanted, or needed, as he’d claimed? If so, Sarah wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it was. “Promise me,” her mother had told her that first summer Sarah stayed at the Sundry Arms, “that if you ever see a syringe lying around the house, you’ll tell me.” Frightened by the prospect of stepping on a needle, Sarah promised she would, but she never saw a syringe “lying around” and couldn’t find one in the medicine cabinet either, though she routinely looked to make sure. But what would she do if she found one? Keeping her mother’s secrets meant she was honor bound to keep her father’s, too, didn’t it? Assuming he had any?
             
     
    A S DIFFERENT as her parents were, Sarah’s strategy for living with them was the same: keep busy, fill the days. In Thomaston, she joined as many after-school clubs as would have her and volunteered at the library and the Shady Rest Nursing Home, explaining to her father that such activities looked good on college applications. And now, of course, there was Ikey Lubin’s, her second home. On Long Island’s South Shore, filling the days was easier. The summer people for whom she’d babysat since she was twelve started arriving around Memorial Day, and the first thing many of them did was call Sarah’s mother in the hopes of getting in the front of the queue for her daughter’s services. “Really? Not until mid-June?” they said, their voices rich with panic. The idea that they’d have to look after their own children until then, every hour of the livelong day, was really too much to bear. “You’re here!” they’d exclaim when she finally arrived. “Can you come Tuesday? No? Wednesday, then? Don’t tell me Gwen Spencer got to you before me? What did that woman do, meet your train?”
    No joke. Sometimes, desperate mothers did precisely that. Having learned the date of her arrival, they’d pretend to be at the station to meet their husbands. “Sarah!” they exclaimed. “I’m so glad I ran into you. Are you free Saturday night? Can we book you Saturdays for the whole summer?” Sarah could’ve charged far more than she did—her mother urged her to—but she preferred instead to be selective, working only for people she liked and whose children weren’t monsters.
    Just once, the summer between her sophomore and junior years, was she tempted by an offer for more work at greater pay. One of the mothers, aware that Sarah was a budding artist, had offered her the large apartment over their garage, which she could use as a studio when she wasn’t looking after the children. It was tempting, because this particular family was her favorite, and the two girls adored her. The husband was young and good-looking, a former college athlete who worked for an ad agency in the city. Monday through Thursday he commuted on the LIRR, which meant that his wife and daughters were alone in the overly large house. She liked how he’d sometimes sneak up behind his wife in the kitchen when he thought Sarah and his daughters were off somewhere, put her in a big bear hug and kiss the back of her neck while she squealed and frantically pedaled her feet in the air as if she were on an invisible bicycle. The round table in the large kitchen had five chairs, which meant that Sarah would fit in quite naturally and wouldn’t crowd them at all, even when the husband was there on his three-day weekends.
    It presented a stark contrast to her mother’s apartment at the Sundry Arms, where the two of them had to eat sitting on barstools at what was euphemistically called the breakfast