Bridge of Sighs

she hadn’t, or even hinted at it, and he doubted she ever would. Though when he scrolled back over their recent conversation, one thing did stand out. When she’d said that she was his friend, and Noonan had said, yes, but you’re Lucy’s girlfriend, she hadn’t confirmed that as a fact. She’d just said he should suggest to Nan that they be good friends. Did she expect him to prove himself as good and decent and selfless as her present boyfriend before he could hope to replace him in her affections? He hoped not, because he
wasn’t
that good or decent or selfless. That much should’ve been obvious. After all, he was his father’s son.

    T HERE WAS no shower or bathtub in his flat above the Rexall, just a commode and a small sink from the days when the whole floor had been rented as office space. Back in the fall the lack of plumbing fixtures hadn’t mattered much because he showered every day after practice. On Saturday or Sunday he went home with a full bag of dirty laundry and used the washer and dryer. He promised his mother that when football season was over she’d see him more often because he’d need to shower there, though when the time came he joined the Y instead. It didn’t cost that much and was only a block away. He also discovered a Laundromat around the corner where one of the dryers, if you knew the trick, worked for free, so he actually went home less, not more. After the first snow he’d put Dec’s Indian up for the winter, and the Borough was just too far away to walk there, or so he told himself. But the real reason he seldom went home anymore was that he couldn’t bear to be around his mother, whose deepening serenity he found very unsettling. At Nell’s, his father reminded him from time to time that she missed him, that it had been a long time since he’d been to see her, and he always promised to visit, his father’s wry smile suggesting every time that he knew he wouldn’t.
    But in late March his brother David found him at Ikey Lubin’s and said that his mother wanted to see him, that she couldn’t understand why he’d stayed away so long, that she had something she needed to talk to him about. He’d promised to stop by on Saturday afternoon, and because he’d said this in front of the Lynches, he actually did, lugging along a big bag of dirty clothes. It was supposed to snow like hell that night, the last big storm of the winter, so it would be good to get that job over with. He could find out what his mother wanted, assuming she still remembered, while his clothes were tumbling. Once there, though, he decided he couldn’t face her yet and went directly into the laundry room and got a giant load going in the washer, then climbed up on the dryer, crossed his legs and read Ralph Ellison, whom they’d be discussing in honors the following week. He’d just transferred his stuff into the dryer when the door opened and there she stood.
    “Mom,” he said. “Hi. I was just coming to find you.”
    When they hugged, she felt feverish and smelled strongly of sleep and medicine. “Don’t you want to go into the living room?” he said when she pulled up a rickety plastic chair and sat down.
    “No, I like it here,” she said dreamily, closing her eyes like a cat. “It’s peaceful.”
    “You’re kidding, right?” he said, studying her closely. Peaceful? The dryer was old and noisy, and the washer, when the load got unbalanced, bounced off the wall like an epileptic.
    “Sometimes, when I’m tired of watching TV or reading magazines, I come in here and just sit and think.”
    If he’d been surprised back in the fall to realize how much his father had aged, he was equally surprised now to discover how young his mother looked. If anything, she looked younger than she had a decade ago. She’d put on weight, for one thing, which had smoothed out the anxiety wrinkles on her face and neck. Her frame had always been slender, almost fragile, and when pregnant she carried her babies right out in front of her. To Noonan, as a boy, her pregnancies always looked fake, like the ones you saw on television sitcoms. And when she delivered, the extra pounds fell off immediately. This new weight was permanent, and it made her look both soft and young. She exuded a baby-powder scent these days as well, which reminded him of his father’s unkind assessment: “Your mother’s a child.” According to David there was something she wanted to talk to him about, but now she seemed