Bridge of Sighs

conspicuous, how her heart had leapt at the sight of that blue door! Later, crossing the street to Sundry Gardens, she had again heard those voices, mocking now:
You’re getting cooler…cooler…cold.
Today they’d whispered throughout her travels and, when she returned to her apartment and locked the door against the outside world, announced gleefully
You’re like ice!
    Shut up, she thought. Who asked you?
    More than anything she wanted to call home, to tell her husband and son to expect her return shortly. Maybe she’d spend a night or two in the city, like she’d originally planned. What prevented her from making this call, she supposed, was pride. After explaining to everyone that she needed to be alone, she hated to admit she didn’t know how to go about it. Not that Lou would have cared. He’d be relieved and overjoyed to see her, beyond grateful that things were returning to normal. And Owen, very much his father’s son, would be glad, too, for many of the same reasons. It was Tessa she’d have trouble facing. They’d always been friends, but over the years, since Big Lou’s death, had grown ever closer. Just how close was, of necessity, their secret. Though she’d never understood why, Sarah had long known that Lou distrusted his mother and was suspicious of her intentions. Once, before they were married, he’d accused her of planning to sell Ikey’s the minute his father was “out of the way,” and Sarah had been hard pressed to persuade him that the opposite was true, that Tessa was merely trying to insulate the store against the terrible eventuality that her husband’s cancer might return. When Lou finally understood how wrong he’d been, he was mortified and for some time thereafter racked by guilt for having believed his mother capable of such treachery, but before long other and different suspicions returned. After they were married, when Sarah and Tessa spent time together, he always wanted to know what they’d talked about, as if convinced his mother was warning her against him, though nothing could have been more remote from the truth.
    It
was
true, though, that Tessa Lynch’s confidences usually coincided with those times when her son was most troubled, a spell bearing down or having just occurred. The most dramatic of these had happened shortly after Big Lou’s death. His passing had hit them all hard, but for many months both women had wondered if Lou would ever bounce back, and that was when Tessa decided to tell her about Dec Lynch. Sarah had long feared there’d been something between them, yet it turned out that she’d had it all wrong. Dec had been Tessa’s first lover, before she’d even met Big Lou, who at the time was still trapped on his parents’ failing farm. Dec had recently returned to Thomaston after being discharged from the army, and according to Tessa everything about him was dangerous and exciting. Her father, having heard all about him, had forbidden her to have
anything
to do with the Lynch boy, but when Dec bought a brand-new Indian motorcycle and offered her a ride, she’d immediately climbed on. And by the end of that first ride she’d decided she wanted
everything
to do with Dec Lynch. Which meant she’d have to lie. To avoid scrutiny they’d usually meet somewhere downtown and roar off on the Indian. Later, Dec would drop her off a few blocks from home so her parents wouldn’t connect her return to the rumble of the motorcycle in the quiet night.
    She was a natural the way she rode, Dec told her, leaning into the curves instead of away, as you would if you were afraid. And when he saw she wasn’t, he couldn’t help wondering what
would
frighten her, so he let out the throttle. But though the Indian went like the wind, Tessa never once told him to slow down, and his inability to scare her, she thought, scared
him
a little. She didn’t tell Sarah about the sex, of course, but the motorcycle metaphor left no doubt in her mind that they leaned into the curves there, too. In retrospect, Tessa admitted, their affair seemed like a madness, almost viral in its feverish intensity. Had they stayed a couple, she said, they probably would’ve ended up robbing banks. Whenever they were together, a feeling of complete abandonment came over them, their individual wildness made exponential by proximity.
    Then one night that delicious recklessness nearly cost them their lives. They’d gone to a rowdy roadhouse near the Pine Mountain summit, and though