Bridge of Sighs

kindness and interest weren’t feigned, nor did they derive, I’m convinced, from any perceived sense of duty. His behavior was merely an extension of who he was. But here’s the thing about my father that I’ve come to understand only reluctantly and very recently. If he wasn’t the cause of what ailed his fellow man, neither was he the solution. He believed in “Do unto Others.” It was a good, indeed golden, rule to live by, and it never occurred to him that perhaps it wasn’t enough. “You ain’t gotta
love
people,” I remember him proclaiming to the Elite Coffee Club guys at Ikey’s back in the early days. Confused by mean-spirited behavior, he was forever explaining how little it cost to be polite, to be nice to people. Make them feel good when they’re down because maybe tomorrow you’ll be down. Such a small thing. Love, he seemed to understand, was a very big thing indeed, its cost enormous and maybe more than you could afford if you were spendthrift. Nobody expected
that
of you, any more than they expected you to hand out hundred-dollar bills on the street corner. And I remember my mother’s response when he repeated over dinner what he’d told the men at the store. “Really, Lou? Isn’t that exactly what we’re supposed to do? Love people? Isn’t that what the Bible says?”
    So when the social worker asked if Sarah and I were in agreement about Kayla, I surprised myself by siding with my mother and saying we’re very much on the same page, that we were determined to love this child, that there’d be no half measures.
    Which may be why my mother and I have been doing better of late. At first I thought maybe my stroke had softened her, because for the entire time that Sarah was gone she could barely contain her anger and disappointment at what I’d allowed to happen. Perhaps the stroke raised in her mind the possibility that she might, despite her advanced age, outlive me. But more likely her softening toward me reflects my own softening toward her. I go over and give her a hug now, and she clings a beat longer than she used to, and when we release each other she looks me over almost fearfully, as if wanting to make sure I’m okay. I give her a smile to suggest that I am, realizing too late that my crooked smile isn’t necessarily my most reassuring feature, though this time it seems to do the trick.
    Kayla’s now pleading with Sarah to let her undrape this new work. “Please!” she begs, and Sarah says of course she can,
now that we’re all here,
letting her know she’d been wrong before, though Kayla’s far too happy to absorb that particular lesson. Again she hops up onto the stool, and with a flourish that would make a game-show hostess blush she announces, “Tada!” and off comes the cloth.
    At first glance it looks like Sarah has simply copied her old drawing of Ikey’s, this time using colored pens. The reds, greens, blues and purples of the new work, compared with the black and white of the old, give the impression of a color photograph placed for contrast next to a version done in black and white. But then I begin to notice the differences. Despite the welcome familiarity, the man by the cash register isn’t my father, it’s me, and the woman at his side is Sarah, not my mother. Over at the meat counter, where Dec stood in the old drawing, there’s Owen. I notice Sarah’s left enough space next to him to add Brindy later, if she returns, or someone else, if she doesn’t. Seated in a thronelike chair in front of the meat case that contains current, updated salads is my mother, looking more like the woman in the first drawing than she does in real life, a kindness she seems to appreciate. In this drawing, too, there’s someone on the threshold, about to enter, but instead of Bobby it’s Kayla, who in the next instant will complete our lives. There’s little to suggest her race, or how else she might differ from us Lynches. We are each of us drawn with a few deft lines that are more suggestive than descriptive. A stranger wouldn’t necessarily recognize me in the man at the register or my mother in that chair. We alone know who we are.
    Just so there’s no confusion, Kayla, continuing her role as hostess, gives us a tour of the drawing. “Ikey Lubin’s,” she proclaims with another sweeping gesture, before becoming specific. “Lou-Lou, Mama, Uncle Owen, Grandma Tessa.” She pauses here for dramatic effect, then identifies herself with an index finger