Bridge of Sighs

were never tempted? Afterward?”
    “Oh, sure,” she admitted. The flame of their brief passion guttered, then flared up at odd moments, mostly in memory, never entirely extinguished. Even years later, when Dec came to work at Ikey’s, she’d feel that old jolt of electricity in a glancing, accidental touch. Whenever this happened, Dec would invariably grin or even wink at her, as if to say
Yeah, I felt it, too.
But it was more than either of them wanted, and for perspective there was also the memory of that truck’s headlights and blaring horn.
    Perhaps because they kept these conversations secret from Lou, Sarah felt guilty, almost as if she were committing an infidelity, but she was also grateful for every one of them. She felt like she’d been given not just a friend but a second mother to replace the one who’d bled to death in the snow. Better yet, Tessa was able to provide things her own mother hadn’t—sound advice about life and the living of it, the benefit of a wise woman’s experience. Her mother hadn’t
been
wise, of course. That was the point. She’d leaned into the curves right to the end, long after the road turned into the long, dull straightaway of Harold Sundry. Neither Tessa nor Sarah would’ve characterized their marriages as such. They’d both loved their husbands more than anyone even suspected, and in return had been adored. But each of them had walked through an open door, then heard it slam shut behind them and the mechanism lock. While neither regretted her decision, knowing the door was locked was disconcerting just the same, as was the fact that their husbands, if they’d heard that same slam and click, seemed untroubled by it. If anything, knowing there was no turning back was reassuring to them. They never felt trapped, never wondered about the mountain road not taken, never felt as though some important part of them was withering as another flourished, never were greedy for what they didn’t have and would never experience.
    Tessa was grateful for the love she’d been given but also understood how it had trapped her. She’d never had the opportunity for what Sarah was doing now, escaping that loving trap, even temporarily. “Go,” she’d said when Sarah started, unnecessarily, to explain her need to get away for a while. “Find yourself. In fact, keep an eye out for me. I’m out there somewhere.”
    Which meant that if she gave up and returned home just because she’d lost the knack of being alone, she’d be betraying Tessa as well. No, she’d give it another day here, at least, and then maybe a few more in the city. If all this was foolish, well, maybe something less foolish would occur to her. She ate a bowl of cereal standing up and then went to bed hoping to feel more optimistic tomorrow.
             
     
    I N THE MORNING, however, her sense of futility had, if anything, deepened. Fortunately, this wasn’t the first time she’d suffered from low spirits, which was why she never went anywhere without her sketch pad. It was as a girl, living across the street at the Sundry Arms, that she learned it was easier to draw than to think her way out of confusion. How low she’d been that last summer until she finally gave in and drew Bobby and how easily, how joyfully he’d leapt from the blank paper. Not that it had relieved her anxiety, of course, or solved the fundamental problem. She’d been in love with two boys, in all probability because each offered her something different, something she needed, or at least she thought they did. Indeed, clarifying the problem should have deepened her crisis. Instead she’d felt intense joy in knowing the truth, even if it was an impossibility:
I love two boys.
Its corollary was even more thrilling:
That’s who I am. The kind of girl who can love two boys.
Every other painting and drawing she’d done that summer had been suffused with that confidence. She saw everything more clearly for the simple reason that she knew who was holding the brush or pen. Her mother had recognized her transformation in a glance. “I’m so, so sorry,” she’d said. At the time Sarah thought she was sorry about what the drawing of Bobby had revealed, but now she knew better. She’d been worried about the gift itself and the potential for misery that accompanied it.
    Locating the sketch pad in the big sleeve on the side of her suitcase, she left the Sundry Gardens and didn’t realize she was heading back to the Arms until she