Bridge of Sighs

someone like that husband, who was particularly good at it. She didn’t consider herself gullible, but of course gullible people never did, and what if she was wrong? Probably best to play it safe and avoid deceitful people. One of the things she loved best about her boyfriend was that, like his father, Lou seemed incapable of deceit. But she’d also begun to realize there was more than one way to lie. Some people lied to each other but also, bizarrely, to themselves. Sometimes they had to in order to lie to others. Weren’t her own parents like that? The official reason she lived with her mother during the summer was that she could make far more money babysitting on Long Island than she could in Thomaston. Her father reminded her of this each time he put her on the train. He would miss her terribly, he said, but she’d make good money and her college fund would grow, just like it had last summer. And, he went on, a girl needed time with her mother. Even though all of this was true, it was still mostly a lie. Her father wouldn’t miss her, at least not as much as she missed him. It wouldn’t take him weeks to get used to her absence. He wouldn’t spend hours imagining what was going on at the Sundry Arms. When he took her to the station in June, she could tell by how he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and kept eyeing the platform clock how anxious he was to see her off. By the time the train pulled out of the station he’d be speeding back to Thomaston, where a fresh ream of typing paper awaited him. This was the
real
reason she was going—so her father could work on his book, uninterrupted.
    At the end of the summer the same thing would happen in reverse. Under the high, vaulted ceiling of Grand Central, she’d listen to the same half-truths she’d heard on the platform of the tiny station in Fulton. “Oh, sweetie,” her mother would lament, “summer’s too short. You just
got
here. You know why I had to leave your father, don’t you? You know I wasn’t leaving
you.
You mean more to me than my own life. Tell me you believe that, sweetie, because I couldn’t bear it if you didn’t. And you know that if things ever get too awful with your dad, you can come live with me, right? You wouldn’t even have to call. You’re old enough now. You can just get on the train and call me when you get to the city. And you know how to get out to the country….”
    Sarah knew her mother believed everything she said when she said it, but she also knew she could make such promises because it was safe to do so. Whatever happened in Thomaston, no matter how terrible her longing for her mother was during the long winter months, Sarah would never abandon her father, never show up on her doorstep expecting to stay. Her mother was what happened during the summer when her father was writing his book. Her father was what happened during the school year when her mother was enjoying her independence. That was what her parents had negotiated. Any revisions would also be negotiated between them, and she’d merely be informed of their decision.
    Still, she knew that parting was harder on her mother, who, unlike her father, stayed with her until the last possible moment, sometimes actually boarding the train with her, making sure she was settled in with her luggage safely stowed on the racks above. Once she miscalculated and the door hissed shut in front of her, and she’d had to stay on the train all the way to Fordham. Sarah suspected—no, she knew—that the apartment would feel empty when she returned, that for weeks she’d be dogged by an emotion she didn’t want to admit was guilt. Maybe that feeling never entirely went away. But neither was it strong enough for her to consider returning to her marriage, her husband, to life in Thomaston, New York. Gradually her guilt would abate, and she’d convince herself of the wisdom of keeping things as they were, since there was no help for it. She did love the freedom her apartment represented, and it wasn’t big enough for two, at least not all year. And what her mother said about Sarah being more important to her than her own life simply wasn’t true, or not true enough to change things. That was the terrible secret her mother held deep in her heart, the one she hoped her daughter didn’t suspect. And it was different only in degree from the secret her father harbored—that once his fingers started flying over the keys, his life was full and