Bridge of Sighs

came around and threw the big rear doors wide open so the light could pour in. After one look at the angle of Bobby’s wrist, the blood drained out of my father’s face. While I expected him to get mad, he didn’t, and when he simply closed the doors again, got back into the truck and turned for home, it wasn’t Bobby but me who began to cry.
    Mr. Marconi was sitting on their upstairs front porch reading a magazine when we pulled up at the curb, and he seemed to know something had happened even before my father opened the rear doors of the truck. On the ride back from the Borough, Bobby had gotten sick, and the front of his shirt now glistened with vomit.
    When Mr. Marconi emerged from the house, my father began “It was an acci—” but Mr. Marconi held up his index finger, as if to say
Wait a minute,
except that he kept holding it there between them, which altered the meaning of the gesture completely. My father seemed to understand that he was being told to hold his tongue and, for the moment, at least, he held it. Mr. Marconi then reached up into the truck, lifted Bobby down and helped him into the station wagon. “I—” my father began again, but Mr. Marconi again held up that index finger and waited until my father backed up onto the terrace, allowing him to go around to the driver’s side and get in next to Bobby, who was by this time slumped against the door, having finally passed out from the pain.
    I was remembering what he’d said to me a few minutes before as we sat together in the back of the truck, everything quiet now aside from the rattling of the milk crates. “You didn’t call the turn.” He seemed less angry than curious, but it was an accusation just the same. I didn’t know what to say, though as soon as he spoke those words, I realized they were true.
             
     
    O DD, HOW WE MISREMEMBER the events of childhood, not just the sequence but also the cause and effect. It wasn’t long after Bobby broke his wrist that the Marconis moved again. My own recollection, until I discussed this with my mother, was that what happened in the milk truck had somehow caused the Marconis to leave the East End. According to her, though, we’d known for months that they were moving. That entire summer I’d been dreading being separated from my one real friend, knowing all too well that our Saturday mornings were numbered. That was why they’d gotten me the new bicycle—to lessen the blow of the Marconis’ leaving and to provide me, at least in theory, with a means of visiting them in their new neighborhood.
    They were moving because the post office had unexpectedly promoted Bobby’s father. Normally it took years to move up through the postal ranks, but that spring there’d been some sort of scandal that resulted in a general housecleaning. The new postmaster brought in from downstate had replaced most of the staff, including several senior letter carriers. Mr. Marconi had been promoted precisely because he’d remained aloof from everyone else and was thus untainted. Some people whispered that he’d ratted out his fellow workers.
    According to my mother, the reason Mr. Marconi had been so livid about Bobby’s broken wrist wasn’t that my father had ignored his warning but that he suspected he’d done it on purpose, out of jealousy at their good fortune. This charge was ridiculous, of course, though it may be true that Mr. Marconi’s promotion and his decision not just to move but to buy a house in the Borough—on my father’s route!—may have upset their delicate equilibrium. My mother remembers that instead of simply congratulating him, my father let on that he didn’t think we Lynches would ever move to the Borough even if we could afford to. We liked the East End just fine, he said, and guessed we had everything we needed right where we were. Mr. Marconi made no secret of his opinion that my father’s attitude was nothing but sour grapes. This simmering animosity, according to my mother, was the backdrop to the surfing accident.
    One thing was certain. Mr. Marconi’s fury had not diminished a jot the next day. We’d seen Bobby return from the hospital that morning with his right forearm in a cast up almost to his elbow. My mother advised my father to wait before going next door, but he argued that would make it look like we didn’t care. I suspected, though, that he was anxious to convey what he’d started to say twice the day before, when Mr. Marconi had held up