Bridge of Sighs

as too much of a shock. I must admit I had a shock myself earlier today when I saw your face (your father’s face?) staring up at me from a glossy magazine someone had left on the train. I asked myself, what were the odds of someone leaving that particular magazine right where I’d chosen to sit? Of the magazine being folded open to just the right page and your face staring up at me instead of down at the seat? But this is what happens when we turn sixty. Random stars form constellations full of personal meaning. Anyway, on the train I read the article about your new show, opening this very day—another star in the constellation!—and I knew I had to attend, though I made a pact with myself that I wouldn’t approach you, because the gallery would be mobbed (it was) and you’d be surrounded by important people (you were). There was little danger of you recognizing me (you didn’t) after forty years. Lou isn’t with me, which is just as well, because he’d have been incapable of restraint. He’d have bragged to everyone in the gallery that you were best friends. Indeed, I wonder if you have any idea how many times in an average week he invokes your name.
    That’s part of why I’m writing what started out to be a simple invitation. You must pay us a visit, Bobby, and I hope you’ll bring your lady friend, Anne. I noticed her at the gallery, the way she kept glancing across the room at you, and she noticed me, too, perhaps for the same reason. Women, unlike men, actually notice things. We talked briefly and it was she who procured the paper this is written on (twice going back for more). I liked her a lot, and her paintings, too. Having her accompany you will make a visit easier on Lou, who believes you and I were in love back when and that we might be again. That’s wonderfully sweet, I think. When he looks at me, he sees the girl he married. He’s totally blind, in other words.
    But destinies turn on individual moments, do they not? Remember how I came over to Ikey’s the day I learned my mother had been killed? Lou was there in the store, and so were Tessa and Lou-Lou. They all took one look at me and knew something horrible had happened. Lou took me in his arms, and I think right then I must have had an intimation about the rest of my life, that it would be spent at Ikey’s, where it was warm and safe and good. I had no idea you were even there. When you came in from the back room, you were smiling, like maybe you were remembering our one and only kiss the day before, and I remember looking away. Because it came home to me then how wrong I’d been about something I’d believed, or tried to believe, all that year: that I wouldn’t have to choose between you. What I never told you, or anyone until now, was that I looked away for shame. You see, before Ikey’s I’d gone to your place above the drugstore. When I heard about my mother, it was you I wanted to tell, Bobby. I don’t know how long I waited for you there. Long enough to feel like a bad person.
    Why am I telling you now? Because, I suppose, it’s finally safe. Because I love my husband and my life. I recently doubted that, but I know now that I was wrong to. Things
have
worked out for the best, and not just for Lou and me. To look at your paintings is to know that you’ve lived the right life. Your
Young Girl
made me think of the night you gave me a ride home on your motorcycle. Remember how I waved to you from my bedroom window? But I particularly admired your
Bridge of Sighs,
which I took to mean you finally made peace with your dad. Such haunted, remorseful eyes you gave him. Your own eyes, if you’ll permit me. Does this mean you’ve forgiven yourself as well?
    Did it? Noonan wondered. How could you know? For some reason he thought about Lucy, how he’d wanted him to explain why some people had to pay at the footbridge while others got to cross for free. That’s just the way it is, he’d replied—rather cruelly, it now seemed to him. And not just cruel. Untrue. Because in the end everybody pays.
    Not long ago,
Sarah continued,
Lou asked me if I thought he’d stolen my rightful destiny by marrying me. I told him the truth, that I loved him and didn’t regret anything about our lives together. But do we ever tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but, so help me God,” as my father used to say, to those we love? Or even to ourselves? Don’t even the best and most fortunate of lives hint at other possibilities, at a