Bridge of Sighs

nook.
“Please,”
the little girls begged, tugging on Sarah’s fingers. “
Please
come live with us.” “Now, girls,” their mother chided, “that’s something Sarah has to decide with
her
mom.” But Sarah could tell she herself was almost as excited as her daughters, and later, when she drove Sarah back to the Sundry Arms, she’d sweetened the pot, assuring her that of course she could have Sundays off. This was the day Sarah and her mother always spent together, and she didn’t want to come between them. In fact, maybe Sarah could take every other weekend, Saturday and Sunday both.
    Should she mention the offer? Her instinct was no. She didn’t want to hurt her mother’s feelings. But then, she thought, what harm would it do? She wouldn’t have to make it sound like something she was interested in, but rather something wanted
of
her. Then she could gauge her mother’s reaction. Who knew? It was possible her mother would see it as mutually beneficial. They
were
squeezed tight at the Sundry Arms, and Sarah knew her presence did cramp her mother’s style, manwise. Also, an artist herself, she’d certainly understand how nice it would be for Sarah to have space to work, a room with good light, where she wouldn’t constantly be having to put her brushes and paints away so they could have space to eat. So maybe.
    Deep down, though, she knew better. Her mother harbored ambivalent feelings about most of the families Sarah sat for, admitting they were pleasant enough and certainly had nice houses but always managing to find something amiss. She wouldn’t let Sarah work for people she hadn’t met. She interviewed them in their own homes, then voiced her suspicions about them after they returned to the Sundry Arms. The bigger the house, the more lavish its grounds and well mannered its owners, the more convinced she’d be that something had to be wrong. If you looked hard enough, you’d find it, and usually her mother didn’t even have to look all that hard. “I don’t envy
that
woman,” she’d remark after being introduced to a new family. “Did you notice that the husband kept trying to look down my blouse?”
    “Maybe you should’ve worn a bra,” Sarah would say, a suggestion her mother was sure to ignore.
    “I give that marriage two years, max. I like what they did with the kitchen, though. Someday before I die I want a big kitchen with an island.”
    At any rate, when Sarah finally did mention the offer, her mother’s crestfallen expression caused her to lie and say she’d already told the woman no. “Who does she think she is?” her mother said, and Sarah felt guilty for weeks, mostly because she realized, after turning it down, how much she’d been looking forward to a seat at that table, to being part of that family. She had no way of knowing that by the end of the summer the couple’s marriage would be in ruins, their summerhouse for sale. The two little girls had cried and cried when informed they’d be heading back to the city early and wouldn’t be seeing Sarah anymore. According to the mother, they’d been even more inconsolable over that than the fact that their father wouldn’t be living with them.
    “You didn’t see that coming?” Sarah’s mother said when she heard the news.
    What she saw, a week later, was the husband coming out of Sundry Gardens. He looked just the same, which for some reason had surprised her. Could a man betray his wife and children and still look the same? Wouldn’t there be visual evidence of his faithlessness? She knew that was silly, but still. And there’d been a woman with him. Pretty, though no prettier than the wife he used to sneak up behind in the kitchen. Sarah wondered if he did the same thing with this new woman, and whether she would ever suspect what was going on behind
her
back. There’d also been a little girl with them, younger than either of the man’s daughters. The adults had each taken her by the hand and were swinging her between them as they made their way to the parking lot. When the husband saw Sarah across the street, he smiled and waved, but she pretended not to see and then not to hear when he called her name. She knew what he wanted of her, and she would
not
babysit for him.
             
     
    L IES, Sarah reluctantly concluded, were simply part of how adults operated. Everybody had secrets, it seemed, and to keep them people lied. That knowledge didn’t trouble her terribly except when she ran across