Bridge of Sighs

they’re delusional.”
    Her mother made a pained face. “Oh, sweetie, that was just me talking. You know how I love to talk, right? Please tell me you don’t believe all the dumb things I say.”
    There didn’t seem to be a polite answer to that question, or even a way to know if it
was
a question. “So, you
want
to be married again?”
    “I don’t know,” her mother admitted. “I had this revelation back in the spring, thinking about how great it was going to be, you coming for the summer, and suddenly I realized I really hadn’t been myself since your brother died. I mean, if that hadn’t happened, I’d probably still be with your father. It was losing Rudy that made me so desperate, made me want to be a whole different person. Deep down I think I’m really more like the woman you remember, back when we were all together, than the person I am now. Losing your brother made me realize how tired I was of the person I’d become, but now I’m even more tired of this new person. Oh, don’t cry, baby. Please don’t.”
    It was the mention of her brother that had done it, of course. How many years had it been since anyone had mentioned his name?
He’d
been the one they couldn’t do without, not and still be a family, and she’d tried for a long time to keep him alive, but with a stab of guilt she realized how long it had been since she’d drawn him. She hadn’t even brought a picture of him along this summer.
    “But
marriage
?” she said, still trying to make sense of it. “Couldn’t you…”
    “Oh, I’d be just as happy to live in sin,” her mother admitted, “but Hal’s dead set on getting hitched. That damned fool woman across the street’s getting remarried, so now he’s got to.”
    Okay, then. Harold Sundry (Hal, now) had entered the conversation. But how to phrase the obvious question:
Of all the men at the Sundry Arms you’re marrying
him? “Do you love him?”
    Her mother sighed. “I don’t know, darlin’. I really don’t. I’ve been trying to make up my mind all summer. He loves me, though. I’m sure of that much. And it’s time I quit living like this, don’t you think? You’ve been so sweet not to judge me, all those men dropping by, but I’ve been judging myself right along. Hal helped me realize that. I need something stable. I need to quit drinking so much, too, and he’s promised to help me. Hal’s an alcoholic himself, so he knows how to quit.”
    “What do I tell Daddy?”
    “That’s not your job, sweetie,” she said. “I’ve been trying to telephone him all week.”
    “He disconnects the phone,” Sarah reminded her. He also canceled the newspaper, refused to answer the door and stacked the unopened mail on the dining room table. No interruptions, none. That was the rule of summer, once the typing began.
    “I know, I know,” her mother said, rubbing her temples. “But who lives like that? I mean, what if something happened to you, and I had to reach him?”
    These were rhetorical questions, Sarah knew, and so felt no obligation to provide answers.
    “Maybe Hal and I can drive up in October. He wants to go look at the leaves in Vermont, so maybe we can kill two birds with one stone.”
    Sarah tried to imagine any part of this scenario actually happening: Harold abandoning the property an entire weekend, the two of them driving to Vermont and staying in some country inn, stopping in Thomaston to share their plans with her father. The last part simply defied imagination. There was no way her mother would ever allow him a good look at Harold Sundry with his big head and his special shoe. “October?” she said. “I can’t say anything until then?”
    Her mother sighed. “That’s not fair, is it? Okay, then I’ll just have to tell him over the phone. I’ll call tomorrow night after you get back. He’ll be expecting me to call then anyway, to make sure you got back safe.”
    Sarah shook her head. “No, it’ll be better if I tell him.”
    “You really think so?” she said hopefully, and Sarah could tell this was how she wanted it. “Here’s another idea! Tell him I died in a car wreck!”
    The pizza arrived then, but Sarah found that her mother’s failed attempt at humor had routed her appetite. The box looked like it contained the results of a head-on collision, the big lumps of Italian sausage now brain matter, the mushrooms various interior organs, the anchovies strips of flesh and skin. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was,” her