Bridge of Sighs

school here in New York. That way you guys could keep seeing each other. She really likes you, and you like her, so…”
    They continued to work, Lucy chattering happily away, reenergized by his belief that sex had been avoided, that all was well. Noonan couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. Nan had shrewdly selected him as the best person to lie to, the person most likely to believe her, also knowing that he’d do his best to convince others. Lucy would always be the sort of person you’d lie to. Something in him wanted you to, so you could tell yourself you were doing him a favor. The first person he’d set out to convince would be Sarah, which was all to the good. All day long Noonan had been worrying about what she’d think of him when she learned he’d slept with Nan just hours after that kiss on the landing.
    That last night’s secret might be safe for a while should have cheered him, but it didn’t, and exhaustion, held at bay until now, finally set in. Suddenly he could barely keep his feet, and every time he tossed another shovelful of snow his throbbing wrist felt ready to snap like a dry twig. It was early evening when they finally finished the driveway, and as they were crossing the intersection, a photographer from the
Thomaston Guardian
took their picture, dragging their shovels behind them like a couple of twelve-year-olds. At Ikey’s he went into the tiny, unheated washroom out back and there sank heavily onto the freezing toilet seat, too tired to rise, his mind scrubbed clean, his body numb. At some point he half realized something was going on out front, some flurry of activity in the store. Had he actually dozed off in there?
    That must’ve been what happened, because when he returned everything in the store had changed. Sarah was there, and Lucy had taken her in his arms. Big Lou, at the register, had silent tears tracking down his cheeks. Tessa wasn’t scolding her husband for being sentimental either, and it was this, even more than Dec, shaking his head at him from across the room, that proved this was serious, whatever this was. His first guilty thought was that Sarah’d had an attack of conscience. She’d gotten home yesterday and realized that it hadn’t been “just a kiss” after all, but a terrible betrayal. Because of
course
she’d kissed Noonan back. He remembered now that her lips had parted, welcoming him. He was smiling, remembering that, when she noticed him standing there, and their eyes met. In that instant he knew he’d been wrong, that this wasn’t about him and had nothing to do with the kiss. Nor had Nan called her to report what he’d done. This was something much bigger, far worse.
    “It don’t make no sense,” Big Lou said, causing Noonan’s heart to sink, because this was what he always said when something was horrible, or unfair, or unexpected, something that didn’t fit into his overall scheme of things or conform to how he thought the world should operate.
    It was Tessa who finally took him aside. The night before on the South Shore, in the same blizzard that had buried Thomaston, Sarah’s mother’s new husband had lost control of their car and hit a tree. He, apparently, had died on impact. Her mother, who wasn’t wearing a seat belt, had been hurled through the windshield. Her injuries, on a normal night, wouldn’t have been fatal, but the wreck hadn’t been discovered until morning, and by then she’d bled to death in the snow. They’d both been drunk. Sarah had been out when the call came, and when she returned home her father was feeding the pages of his novel into the fireplace. And so she’d known even before he told her.
    A car pulled up at the curb, and its horn tooted just as Mrs. Lynch finished relating all this. It was his father, and Noonan knew why he was there. It was Sunday, his night to tend bar at Nell’s, and he should’ve been there an hour ago. “You go on,” Tessa said when he told her. “I’ll explain. We’ll take care of her.”
    He knew they would. All the Lynches, even Dec, not just Lucy. He again recalled yesterday’s kiss and thinking that in the instant his lips had touched Sarah’s everything had changed, but saw now that he’d been wrong. It was, as Sarah had said, just a kiss. When she realized he was standing there and looked into his eyes, he’d seen that for Sarah the kiss had never even happened. She’d held his gaze only briefly, then turned away.
             
     
    “M AX HAS YOU