Bridge of Sighs

that at times bordered on self-loathing. These were the very things I should’ve been telling Sarah myself, if I hadn’t been so terrified of losing her. One night I worked myself into such a state that I actually made myself sick and woke my parents by retching violently into the toilet.
    The last day of her spring break, my father presented the two of us with a gift certificate to a fancy restaurant located out on the old Albany–Schenectady road that sat on a hill overlooking the canal. Below, in the waning light of evening, dense squadrons of winter birds dove in rigid formation at the water. It was late March, but spring came slowly upstate, its only signs of approach were the snow that had turned brown and water that could be heard tunneling underneath it.
    We were given a table by a window through which we could watch the diving birds. How beautiful Sarah looked that night. I can still see her, across the long years, in that lovely, high-necked navy-blue dress, and I remember everyone turning to look at her when we were seated. Our waitress mistook us for newlyweds, which I normally would’ve taken enormous pleasure in. But I’d been feeling out of sorts all day, as if I might be coming down with something, and conflicted, too, wishing Sarah weren’t leaving the next day but glad that my mother wouldn’t have further opportunities to poison the well of her affections against me. Also, I was afraid. It had occurred to me that this would be the perfect occasion for Sarah to confess that she was having second thoughts, that maybe we’d been unwise to commit ourselves so young.
    When she finally asked why I was so glum, I muttered something about wishing she didn’t have to leave tomorrow, and she responded that it wouldn’t be that long before we saw each other again, to which I replied spitefully that maybe it would seem a lot longer to me than it did to her. She then reminded me that I could visit her in the city anytime I wanted. In fact, there were people she wanted me to meet, and she’d like to show me her school, as well as all the sights. We could go to the top of the Empire State Building, take a cruise around Manhattan, see Radio City Music Hall. She rattled on like this for a while, her cheer causing my spirits to plummet even further. Of course she could make such offers safely, knowing that I couldn’t take her up on them, not with my father still weak from his treatments and Ikey’s needing me.
    Eventually she ran out of ideas, and when she did I asked what I’d been wanting to all week: what had she and my mother found to talk about up in the flat for the last two weeks? And just that quickly, her eyes were full. “Your poor mother,” she said. “She’s terrified, you know. She’s afraid the doctors aren’t telling the whole truth. She doesn’t trust Lou-Lou’s surgeon because a woman she knows said he lied about her husband, told her there was nothing to worry about, and six months later he was dead.”
    I’m afraid what I did then was give a harsh, bitter croak that tasted of last night’s vomit. “You don’t get it, do you? If that’s what happens, she gets her way. If they find another tumor, she’ll sell the store. She hates Ikey’s. She’s always hated it. Right from the start she said it would fail, that my father was stupid to buy it. Now she gets to be right. She’ll tell him there’s no choice. They either have to sell the store or lose the house. She doesn’t care what he wants or I want. Why do you think she’s spending all that money renovating the flat? Because she thinks that if it’s fixed up nice, Ikey’s will sell. Then, with the store gone, she’ll get her way with me, too. If I don’t have Ikey’s to come home to, I won’t have any choice, will I? I’ll have to do what she wants. Stay in school. In Albany. She gets her way about everything.”
    I might have stopped at any time. I saw the look of horror on Sarah’s face deepen with each bitter utterance. Little did she know how much more was right on the tip of my tongue. Like what Nancy Salvatore told me about my mother that day in the store years ago, about my father never knowing what had hit him, just like my uncle Dec before him. I could still see the woman’s obscene sneer, her eagerness to prove she knew my mother longer and better than I did and knew she wasn’t who I thought she was. And after that I’d tell Sarah about Uncle Dec, because it now seemed obvious he was the man