Bridge of Sighs

visual evidence suggested this was the only valid conclusion to be drawn.
    “No sir.” Noonan had started to offer his hand, but saw now there was no point.
    “Then how did
that
happen?” Mr. Beverly demanded.
    Noonan squinted at him, trying hard to follow his logic. Under the circumstances, mentioning the sleeping bag didn’t seem the wisest strategy. “It was an accident,” he said. “I’m sorry about last night. We should’ve called, but Nan was pretty upset—”
    “Upset?” her father said. “Did you touch her?”
    It was the imprecise nature of this question that caused him to hesitate, and in that pause Mr. Beverly intuited the truth, or something like it. Immediately Noonan saw the man’s intention to throw a punch and then, in the next instant, the punch itself. Because he was still holding on to the handle, he was able to lean back without slipping. Mr. Beverly’s wildly thrown fist, encountering nothing but air, spun him around on the slick incline, then both feet flew out from under him, and he landed flat on his back, his head cracking on the packed snow before he disappeared completely under the car. Alarmed, Noonan peered over the windshield, expecting him to slide out and stand up on the other side, but instead a groan issued from underneath.
    He carefully backed up to the front wheel, then got down onto his hands and knees to look underneath. It seemed Mr. Beverly’s overcoat had snagged on the undercarriage, and he was looking straight at Noonan, as if for an explanation. “Ohhhhh,” he moaned.
    “Let me go around the other side,” Noonan said. “I’ll pull you out.”
    But when he got there, he saw that Mr. Beverly was perfectly centered beneath the vehicle. By lying on his stomach, he could reach him, though not with enough purchase to yank him free. “Mr. Beverly?” he said. “Can you move at all?”
    His head, apparently, since he was staring at Noonan again. “Shoulder,” he groaned. “
Dislocated.
Happened before. Call ambulance.”
    He had to ring the doorbell three times before Nan’s mother answered, her sleeves rolled up, her forearms wet. “She’s in the bathtub,” she said. “Washing off your filth.”
    “Right,” Noonan said. “Your husband said to call an ambulance.”
    “Where is he?”
    He pointed under the car.
    “You ran over him?”
    “He slipped.”
    “You’re a monster.”
    “No,” Noonan said. He wasn’t feeling good about himself, it was true, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t warranted so harsh an assessment.
    “Wait here,” she said. “Don’t you step one foot into our house. Do you understand me?”
    He nodded, and Mrs. Beverly went over to stand next to the car. She wasn’t the sort of woman who got down on her knees in the snow. “Jack,” she said sharply.
    “Ambulance” came her husband’s voice.
    “Did that boy do this to you?”
    “No,” Noonan called.
    She ignored him. “I’m calling the police,” she told her husband.
    “No. My fault. All my fault.”
    “Of course it’s all your fault,” she said. “What do you think I’ve been telling you for the last twenty-four hours. This
is
all your fault. My God, what kind of man are you?”
    “Hurt.”
    Mrs. Beverly marched back to the house, and Noonan held the door open for her. “He can just stay there for all I care,” she said.
    “Would you like me to call the ambulance?”
    “I’d like you to leave here and never return.”
    “Okay,” he said. “Except—”
    “Go. Get out. Now.”
    “That’s my father’s car.”
    “So walk.”
    “He’ll want it back.”
    Mrs. Beverly considered this for a second, then screamed, louder than he’d ever heard a woman scream, “Get
out
of here! Get out! Right this minute!”
    Noonan walked up the drive, past his father’s car. When he heard the front door shut behind him, though, he turned around and cautiously returned to the car, getting down on his hands and knees again.
    “Did she call? The ambulance?” Mr. Beverly said, staring at him.
    “I don’t know.”
    He nodded. “I’m going…to pass out, I think,” he said, and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
    “Me, too,” Noonan said. Standing up, he glanced back at the Beverly home one last time. In what he guessed must be her bedroom window, Nan was standing in a pink robe. He waved goodbye, in the sense of so long. She too waved goodbye, in the sense of goodbye.
             
     
    T HE BLIZZARD HAD DUMPED just under three feet of snow,