Bridge of Sighs

she have known that a beating was coming? She knew only what her father expected of her and that the Mock boy had a crush on her and still wanted to sit next to her in the dark theater, even though he now knew better than to try to hold her hand or let his arm rest on her shoulder. At one point she heard a sound, looked over and saw he was crying. They didn’t speak a single word to each other during the entire movie.
    Dear God, Sarah thought. Dear God. She could forgive her poor, scared, thirteen-year-old self, but what did it mean that now, at sixty, she was again using a black child? “Ain’t no bottom to that child’s need” was the way Miss Rosa had described Kayla. For the last two weeks Sarah had been trying to convince herself that she was addressing at least a few of those needs, but in truth she was giving her only what she could easily afford.
Bottomless need.
What Miss Rosa didn’t seem to understand was that this accurately described not only most children but also the scared child that lived, at least part of the time, deep inside most adults. The first time she understood this was that long-ago afternoon in the movie theater after all the other kids had left. Sitting in the manager’s office, her nose bloodied in the scuffle, she’d then looked up and seen Lou’s face framed in the doorway and seen within him a great kindness and, yes, a terrible need that touched her deeply. He’d worn that same expression when she called him back from her Bridge of Sighs painting, and she remembered thinking that she couldn’t bear it anymore, she just couldn’t.
    “And what if that
was
your mama up there?” Miss Rosa was saying. “What then? Almose a hunnerd years old. Prob’ly doan know who she is half the time and where she is the other half. What you want from her? She gon get her mind back so she can tell you what to do?”
    “No,” Sarah said. “My mother never was much for giving advice.”
Oh, sweetie, I don’t know, you’ve seen what a mess I make of things. Just…do the best you can, okay?
Sarah could feel her eyes filling. “But if I could just talk to her one more time.” Maybe she didn’t know everything she’d say to her mother, but she’d at least let her know she finally understood how life worked, that one day you woke up and found yourself in the throes of what could only be despair, prey to doubts you imagined long banished, your self-confidence shredded. “The last summer we were together, she lost her way and did a very foolish thing. I might have been able to prevent it, but I didn’t, and I don’t know why. Maybe I was afraid I’d tell her the wrong thing. But now
I’m
the one who’s lost and—”
    “And you thinkin’ about doin’ a damn fool thing your own self. Somethin’ you want to get talked out of.”
    Sarah looked her in the eye. “Then you agree, it’s foolish?”
    “How my s’posed to know if it’s smart or dumb if you doan tell me?”
    “Can’t I just be like Jesus and not go into specifics?”
    “No, ma’am.”
    Sarah took a deep breath. “I think I’d be better for Kayla than child services.”
    “Keep goin’.”
    “But I had cancer last year. I’m in remission, but…no guarantees.”
    Miss Rosa nodded.
    “I’m thinking about renting an apartment or small house around here. That way we can visit.”
    “Visit who?”
    “You.”
    “Me an’ that door up there, you mean,” she said, then, when Sarah offered no comment, “Keep goin’.”
    “Also, if I’m here, and the cancer comes back—”
    “You give the child back.”
    That sounded horrible, but yes. “I don’t think I can go back to my old life. I don’t know why, but—”
    “Keep goin’.”
    “That’s all.”
    “No it ain’t. Tell the truth and shame the devil.”
    An even deeper breath. “I want to meet Mrs. Feldman.”
    Miss Rosa surprised her by taking her hand. “Can’t let you take that child nowhere, not even ’cross the street, till I know you ain’t crazy. You know I can’t, so doan ask me.”
    Sarah felt Kayla’s eyes shift from Miss Rosa onto her, and then her own eyes started leaking. “Why do I feel like she’s in there?” she said. “If it’s not true, why does it
feel
true?”
    “I’ll pray on it,” Miss Rosa said. “You know I will.”
             
     
    T WO DAYS LATER, Miss Rosa abruptly ordered Kayla back into their apartment. It was late afternoon, and the gangsta children had mostly risen and come out, shirtless, to